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Rogue Police Sacked On The Spot.
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https://uk.yahoo.com/style/corrupt-police-face-automatic-dismissal-060000022.html
The new rules say that a finding of gross misconduct will automatically result in summary dismissal unless "special circumstances" apply, and that the old system was "soft".
Conveniently ignoring that, under the "soft" system, 95% of people found to have committed gross misconduct were indeed dismissed. Anyone think that "special circumstances" didn't apply for the other 5% then?
The major problem with police disciplinary processes is that they are too slow. So, for example, of the 209 Met Officers currently facing disciplinary action, only 49 of them currently have a disciplinary scheduled.
Now-I suppose this could be the fault of the presiding lawyers. Provided you believe that Lawyers are too slow to trouser fees. In reality, it is slowness within the system.
Under the new Rules, the process will have to be chaired by a Chief Constable or Deputy Chief Constable. So-that is a field of 2 officers in each force. As opposed to probably several hundred people who can currently chair hearings. Which is going to lead to 2 things. Firstly, more delay. And secondly, leaders of police forces having no time left to actually do their jobs.
It annoys me when people look to blame outsiders for their internal problems.
PS-when will public bodies stop wasting taxpayers money taking disciplinary proceedings against people who have already resigned? No-one else does this. Create a Register. For people who are never again to be police officers. Get people to sign up for it instead of disciplinary hearings. And you have just saved several £million a year.
It is usually the case that, when a former employee takes action for Unfair Dismissal in an Employment Tribunal, a lot centres on whether due process was followed at the Dismissal Hearing. There have been occasions when I have cross-examined the person who made the decision to Dismiss for half a day in a Tribunal and, unless he wants to be destroyed, he would need to take extensive legal advice and prepare for a considerable length of time.
In the meantime, who is going to be running the force?
I'm happily retired now. But I have chaired lots of disciplinary hearings, acted for both employer and employee in them, and acted for both employer and employee in Tribunals. It's not like all forces do not have large legal and HR teams in-house if "independent" lawyers cannot be trusted to provide a "fair" outcome.
I just cannot fathom why people like Mark Rowley believe they are the right people to personally carry out specialist legal functions. With no training or experience. And a hundred and one other things to do to actually improve the functioning of the Police.
I don't think I have the training, experience or indeed skillset to be a Chief Police Officer. Simply because it is a totally different set of skills needed. And, if he doesn't understand that the reverse is also true, he should seek advice. The failed Lawyer that is currently Home Secretary might be a good place to start
As far as I understand it the latest changes are supposed to iron out problems created by the new regulations that were brought in in 2016.
You are saying that this wont happen, or at least it will create a different set of problems.
I can see that top police officers have an important job to do, and that they shouldnt spend loads of their time on disciplinary matters.
However you would think it would be possible to come up with a set of rules that worked, and a process that was easy to operate.
It is surely not rocket science.
Sky news have been running a story on upskirting this morning.
This has now been an offence for 4 years.
During that time we have had a total of 68 convictions.
It seems that the majority of victims are girls rather than women.
Many offences take place in schools.
The Sky example victim was a schoolgirl.
The perpetrator was a schoolboy.
The school involved told the boy to delete the photos, and sent him on his way.
So it seems we have created a criminal offence with absolutely no thought on how we intend to enforce it.
The other example on Sky was a guy crouching behind a woman in a supermarket, taking photos.
So are we going to have chubby police officers trying to look 14, hiding behind pot plants in schools, or thousands of them roaming the aisles of supermarkets, and undercover in tube stations?
Or are we going to have yet another in theory law, that is not really enforced?
We have a Home Secretary, who lambasts the "soft" scheme that was introduced by, er the Conservative Government in 2016.
We have a Commissioner for the Met, who believes that any failings in the system are absolutely nothing to do with him or his management of 45,000 staff.
And a magic pill that is supposed to solve problems. Which is nothing more than a power grab. And creates headlines. Not solutions.
And these most definitely not "new powers". Just transferring power to a person ill-suited to the additional powers he has.
Many years ago, 1 of my roles in a large Company was to be the appointed lawyer for the Staff Association. Which meant that, whenever there was a possibility someone might be dismissed, I was asked to defend them. On this particular occasion, the Senior Manager conducting the Hearing was known to be rather, let's say forthright in his views.
After the Hearing, which all went fine, I was passing the HR Directors Office, and was asked to enter. Only to find the entire Board sitting in there.
I was asked how the Hearing went. I started to explain my role, confidentiality, blah blah, when I was interrupted, with the question:-
"We accept all that. How did the Senior Manager do?"
To which I replied-"Absolutely fine. If I hadn't known better, I could almost imagine he was reading off a prepared script."
Queue much laughter. And that Senior Manager never knew that he was the 1 more likely to be dismissed as a result of that Disciplinary Hearing...
I went a Tribunal once.