Thursday 2 December 2010

Chief Polices Officers Contempt and Insubordination towards Theresa May

Theresa May and the Police are back in the headlines as the new government delivers on a promise for 'Elected Police Commissioners'.

However, it is worth looking back at the very first major announcement that Theresa May made regarding the police and how that has panned out.

29th June 2010 Theresa May addressed ACPO (the association of chief police officers - a private company that directly controls policing within the UK) she told those present that the wasteful, box ticking 'policing pledge' and 'confidence target' were scrapped with immediate effect.

This was also covered (with some joy) on this site:

However when we come to look at what these unaccountable Chief Police Officers have actually done following this direct instruction from the senior, accountable member of government to whom they should be obedient, I am afraid it is not good...

Chief Police Officers seem to have entirely ignored this instruction - they are known to be very left wing, and strongly supported the previous 'NuLabour' government and were enthusiastic in adopting their wasteful box-ticking exercises - but insubordination?

I contacted my local police force using a freedom of information request on 17th July 2010 asking what impact this scrapping had had on them.

They failed to reply (as required by law) and following an internal review I eventually received a reply on the 26th of August 2010 - confirming that the scrapping of the police pledge and confidence target had made absolutely no difference to Sussex police whatsoever!

I then made another request on 28th August 2010 regarding the continence of these scrapped targets
asking for copies of correspondence, minutes etc of any meetings/discussions that had occurred internally.

Following another unsatisfactory response, on 2nd October I requested an internal review of this request also. Now the 30th November I finally got a response to this, which found information not originally disclosed.

However, apart from a single circulated memo, Sussex Police seem to be claiming that no discussion or consideration was given to Theresa Mays scrapping of these targets - and there is nothing to support the reponse that they gave to my initial request!

Elected Police Chiefs - yes please, and they need to be uncontaminated by previous contact/responsibility for existing Chief Police Officers - we need people who can kick ass and stop our Chief Police Officers (and their disgusting commercial money spinner 'ACPO') showing such contempt for the people of this country and our elected representatives.

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