At a time when morale is at an all time low and officers are being pursued by the Police Police for speaking out about how bad things really are I always find it useful to read an article from a hack that has resorted to the journalistic goldmine that is the Freedom of Information Act to supply him with a story. Someone with nothing better to do than submit pointless FOI requests has, yet again, wasted a huge amount of someone’s time by causing them to respond to a request that asks how much cash the Met have spent on calling the speaking clock and directory enquiries.
I can think of no reason why this information might be of use to ANYONE except as the basis for a little tabloid point-scoring. What will be next, an investigation into whether the washing up bowls and dishwashers are more or less than half full when turned on…I can see the ‘Met Waste Water During Hosepipe Ban’ headline now…
The damning figures quoted by Joe Wade, one of the writers for the Don’t Panic website, published sites such as Yahoo suggest that massive amounts of taxpayers money have been wasted by the Met in making calls to the phone based services. £200,000 is the figure quoted in his article which on the face of it appears to be quite substantial.
However, when you break it down the actual cost sheds a different light on the situation. The Met employ, according to figures on their website, 55,377 Police officers and Civilian Staff. For the benefit of my calculations I have not included Dogs and Horses in this number as they rarely use the phone. The cost of a call to the most popular Directory Service (118 118) costs 41p for the first minute and £1.29 per minute after that. I have also restricted my figures to the cheapest option with all calls costing no more than the minimum charge.
The implication of Wade’s article is that the Met are haemorrhaging cash through endless unnecessary use of the Directory Enquiries services, but doing the sums based on these figures, it appears that the exorbitant cost of the use of the phone directory service is the result of each employee irresponsibly making an average of 8.08 calls per year. Applying the same calculations, the officers and staff can be shown to have made 2.04 calls to the speaking clock over the same period.
While I am all for ensuring that budgets are spent responsibly and that those who fritter away their allocated funds should be called to account, I hardly think that this cost, one of many significant costs in an establishment the size of the Met, is worthy of criticism on the basis of implied financial irresponsibility. Wade continues by quoting a Met spokesperson who told him that not all officers have access to the internet and then, in what I can only call a juvenile development of that statement, suggest that officers might actually be using type writers, bits of slate and cups connected by tightly pulled bits of string to conduct their investigations.
Finally, Wade turns to the bedrock of anti-police attitudes. The ‘when I was burgled/assaulted/abused by my brother’s friend’s sister’s cousin on Facebook you didn’t do what I (as an armchair legal expert) think you should have done. Here is what Wade says about his experience of a Police investigation:
So even despite using the same sort of technology as television’s ‘Cadfael’ the police have managed to reduce crime! Well I guess Holmes didn’t need the Internet either right? Well, when Don’t Panic’s office was burgled we knew who the perpetrator was, even after the police had taken our statement it took about 20 calls to the station to speak to the investigating officer. He eventually agreed to go to the offender’s home, where he found our stolen camera. We also supplied tapes of the disgruntled ex-employee offering to return the stuff for £3,000. He didn’t even get charged and the whole thing was forgotten.
A ‘burglary’ (I will explain the quotes later) with a named offender is the golden egg of modern Police investigation. To suggest it would not be actively investigated is ridiculous. Criticising the number of calls placed before direct contact was made with the investigating officer is spurious to say the least.
- Did Wade give consideration to the fact that the officer worked a 24/7 shift pattern and probably had at least a dozen other offences on his account that also needed attention? I doubt it. I don’t expect the officer in question would be allowed to remain on day shifts and to be permanently within ten feet of a phone to allow him to be the ‘personal Police Officer‘ that Wade suggests he expected.
- Is it possible that the journalistic mentality we see in his article meant that Wade might have plagued the station with 20 calls in one day just to provide the basis for a critical stance? Absolutely. I have seen the underhand, devious and, at times, illegal tactics used by reporters and journalists at crime scenes to get a unique perspective on an incident…nothing would surprise me!
Wade states that offender, known to his company, was spoken to by Police, a stolen camera recovered from his home and that the offender had offered that item back to the company for £3000.
Having done this job for a while I can clearly see that this is an example of a disgruntled ex-employee retaining goods in lieu of money he or she believed they were owed. Wade claims that this is an un-investigated burglary when it appears, quite clearly, to be a civil debt. THAT is the reason why no-one was charged…a criminal offense is a teeny tiny technicality if you want to put someone in the dock. I would suggest, and I am always willing to be corrected, that the circumstances under which the employee left the company may well have been a more than a little contentious.
Just saying….
Wade next manages, in spectacular fashion, to attempt to turn a reduction in violent crime (including a reduction in the number of murders despite 12 being killed in Cumbria) and vehicle crime into a criticism of Police by implying that offences such as theft of motor vehicle have been reduced by improved vehicle security rather than effective Police investigations.
At the very bottom of the article Wade does, finally, acknowledge that Police can get the job done right. He refers to a ‘kidnapping’ (still sceptical I am afraid) incident when Police caught the offenders and secured convictions of 14 years without the need for him to even give evidence.
Finally he manages to vomit up 10 words of support for Police speaking against cuts in Police budgets. A charming sentiment, but in my eyes…too little too late.
