Last week I wrote to challenge the appalling way that information obtained from the Met about the phone bills had been misrepresented by the media to try to make its readers think that we (as Police officers) were whining about losing a few quid from our [allegedly] huge salaries or pension pots whilst spending thousands of un-necessary pounds on phone calls to the speaking clock and those two blokes with 118 on their t-shirts.
This week its the turn of those who file claims against Police Forces for injuries in the workplace to come under the F.O.I. powered spotlight.
These claims by Police Officers and Civilian Staff are certainly substantial, but the report appears to place the blame for this on Police Forces for this. A report published today states the problem is a combination of failure to protect their staff and for failing to challenge the compensation process when I feel the focus should be on challenging the litigation culture that appears to have infected the UK after years of existence in the United States amongst other countries.
Two of the comparatively small non-assault related claims were a payout of £14,000 to a sergeant in Humberside Police who said that the buzzer on cell doors had given him tinnitus and a similarly ludicrous award of £17,500 for an employee of an unknown force for ‘noise-induced deafness from a computer/keyboard.
At the top of the same scale were Hertfordshire Police who paid £550,000 to a civilian police employee who slipped on ice in a car park and broke an elbow and £120,516 given to a police worker for a ‘bruise’ by West Midlands Police (who unfortunately refused to disclose any more details of the incident). That must have been a pretty damned impressive bruise when you consider that Northumbria Police only paid out £109,889 for a fractured spine sustained in similarly unexplained circumstances.
Quoting, yet again, the same budget cut figures being enforced by the Home Office and rammed down our throats week in week out, the article appears to imply that this money should not have been paid out in such quantities and that this is another example of excessive and unnecessary Police expenditure in times of austerity. It felt to me as a reader, that I was being asked to blame the Police for the financial strain it had finds itself under.
This is not the case.
The issue here is purely and simply the attitude of the people involved and is borne of the same blame culture that means that officers such as myself end up dealing with the sort of incidents that would not have even been raised with a teacher in a primary school 20 years ago.
Those same people have infested offices and ‘Offices’ throughout the country and appear to be happy to chuck in a claim form if they stub their toe on the stairs or carelessly zip up the fly of their Police issue trousers without sufficient care or training (if you get what I mean).
I accept that there are scenarios where genuine negligence exists and reasonable compensation should, of course, be awarded. But there are some claims and figures that are simply mind-boggling and have, ultimately, contributed to a total of £12,109,426 being paid out over the last five years by the Forces that replied to the request (four forces did not supply figures in response to the request). This figure is about a third of the annual cut being demanded of my force by Winsor but is still WAY too high to be considered acceptable.
Having seen how profitable a sore ear or finger can be, I have to wonder about the correlation between these civil compensation payouts and those awarded in respect of criminal injuries to Police Officers sustained in the line of duty. I have been injured a number of times through bad luck, bad judgment or insufficient or ineffective backup and have received everything from minor cuts and bruises to being hit by a robber with a crow bar and sustaining severe bruising after going over the bonnet of a car that failed to avoid my lane closure and the 12 cones that I had just finished putting out.
Not once have I received more than a three figure sum in respect of these incidents, and only once have I made it past two! Usually the courts are content to award the obligatory £50 and allow the offender the option of making the penalty payable over 12 months in easily digestible chunks. Perhaps something should be done to redress that balance…it would be nice to feel that the risks we run, and the inevitable personal sacrifices we make by putting ourselves in harm’s way, are appreciated by the courts.
More importantly (and I know it’s a futile request) I think that if you fall over a step that has been there for 15 years then you should expect your colleagues to point and laugh, not spend their time (and their employer’s time/wages no doubt) writing a witness statement support ‘Hot Water’ signs above all the hot taps or painting white lines on the floor to warn of an impending change to senior officer depth carpet.
MC’s Health and Safety Policy is as follows: If you fall over, you should have looked properly. If you hurt yourself lifting a box that was too heavy, you shouldn’t have tried so hard to lift it in the first place. If your keyboard makes too much noise when you type……don’t even get me started on that one!
Stop blaming everyone else when you cock things up. Most of the time it’s probably your own stupid fault anyway, and all your claim will do in the present climate is provide you with a small down-payment on your redundancy check when the financial strain you have helped to create takes its toll on the Force as a whole.
Rant ends…
