We have been forced to cut many corners in the hunt for those illusive targets set by Winsor and his cohorts in Government. We have streamlined every aspect of our operation to try and meet the 20% savings that will, apparently, save us from disaster. Front counters have closed, cell blocks have closed, entire Police stations have closed and teams are running with less resilience than ever before. We have even centralised other major parts of the business (for that is what it has become) such as the control room and contact centre, IT and other phone based departments have also been combined into locations designed for half the occupancy. Servicing and Fleet Maintenance have also had their capacity reduced with workshop facilities from the smaller locations being thrown together in a big, cheap building that is nowhere near the response and traffic hub – the only thing this has achieved is a moderate top line cost saving.
Today I spoke with one of the motorway officers who had, by chance, just gone through the process of getting a minor fault fixed with his car. All that was wrong was that the little tiny indicator bulb in his wing mirror had blown. This is a 29p part and required little technical expertise to change. In the good old days, which now refer to any date more than six years ago in most people’s opinion, the problem would have been sorted in minutes in one of the following ways:
Option 1:
The officer would have gone to the cupboard where all the useful stuff was kept and got a bulb from the adequate supply therein, replaced the busted part and carried on with his day five minutes behind schedule.
This option went entirely to plan until he got to the cupboard and found that there was nothing there except some empty bulb boxes and a couple of obsolete headlights from the 90′s. Due to the financial implications of holding stock in a number of places that isn’t immediately used all spares are now held by the SFM staff in a lockable cabinet in their workshop. It might save a few quid in the short-term, but if you blow a headlight after 4.30pm you are screwed!
Option 2:
The backup would have been to have got a tenner from petty cash and gone to Halfords, bought a bulb, replace the part and carried on with his day fifteen minutes behind schedule.
Petty cash has been a thing of the past since the front counter and back office at his station closed and the associated staff and admin team moved to other locations. Petty cash purchases are a thing of the past and all other purchases now have to be made using approved suppliers, or processed through the central procurement team being delivered within a week or so. This does not relate to vehicle spares so Option 2 is a non-starter.
Option 3:
Pop into the local workshop and get them to fit a new bulb before carrying on with his day, thirty minutes behind schedule.
This option was the officer had been left with in preference to not using the car at all. Unfortunately this is no longer as simple as it used to be. He had to phone ahead and confirm that they had the time to see him and submit a Fleet Maintenance Request by email to confirm the fault. Then, once acknowledged, he had to drive for 35 minutes to the central Fleet Maintenance building, waiting 15 minutes for a technician to finish his previous job before fitting a new bulb, then spending a further 10 minutes completing a Fault Rectification form and signing the vehicle off as fit for use. Finally the driver then returned to his station, completing the return 35 minute journey and finally getting out on patrol a full three hours behind schedule.
‘a huge chasm’
The cost of this exercise cannot be easily measured. The officer time would have amounted to about £50 in salary terms and the cost of the 29p bulb also remained. We have to add to that the thirty minutes of the mechanics time, the fuel cost of a 52 mile round trip and the fact that his vehicle was off the road for three hours and was therefore unable to assist with the crash on the motorway which happened while he was on the other side of the division. Less trained divisional officers ended up helping with the crash and were therefore exposed to a higher degree of risk than their more experienced and better equipped colleagues in the big cars.
I would estimate that the cost of that 29p bulb was probably inflated to over £100 in total due to streamlining and cost cutting. A clear demonstration that there is sometimes a huge chasm between the headline saving and the bottom line cost. Some officers, including me, have resorted to sorting these types of issue at their own cost on more than one occasion. It’s just what we do to keep things running smoothly. 29p, after all, is not much in the grand scheme of things if it keeps the wheel from coming off, but at the end of the day it shouldn’t be down to us to fix the failings, regardless of how small the price.
