Staffing

I have now been acting skipper on a reactive shift for about a month ish prior to that i was acting neighbourhood skipper.

There are a hell of alot of differences in the responsibilities. I mean struggling to resource jobs with minimum staffing. Trying to bottom out the sometimes poor handovers from the previous shifts (who to be fair dont have a skipper most of the time). And trying to get the team to perform.

Its quite a balance especially where i dont have the numbers on shift to be able to resource Urgent jobs as well as allowing them time to progress their own jobs. At the same time trying to get the detection rate up and getting their workloads down.

I have had to be quite ruthless with their jobs and file them at the first chance i get to save endless enquiries which will lead nowhere in an effort to bring down the number of jobs they are carrying.

In theory if i reduce their current workload then they will be able to be more proactive and get the drugs searches and public order jobs rather that constantly taking statements to progress their own jobs. Also the less work they carry in theory the happier they will be at work. I mean when i used to carry a heavy workload i used to dread coming in to have to do more paperwork, and when the level dropped then i was happier in my role and was getting the proactive stops, the drugs searches, disrupting the drunks causing problems.

Its just so hard to do these days balancing the needs of victims, and the needs of the community as well as the welfare of my officers. Along with resourcing the new jobs coming in which need attendance.

I dont like to keep callers waiting for attendance, but need to prioritise their call because our grading system isnt the best and we really need several kinds of urgent rather than one.

I am going onto nights this week so will be trying to get my officers out there rather than sitting in the nick doing paperwork. I will be out there too trying in an effort to lead by example.

They are not a bad team, they can work hard when pushed, i just want them to work hard, enjoy the job without being pushed.

Having said that, we had 3 officers on duty recently and still managed to arrest 2 for burglary which resulted in them being late off. Sadly they wouldnt allow me overtime to supervise the final stages and i really hope they did a good job after the arrests otherwise it will marr the good efforts at the scene. I guess i little faith and hope they dont let me and themselves down!

First night shifts for over 3 months, could be interesting.

Results

Well the results are in and i have the feedback from the Roads Policing board and my application for Sgts Boards.

I got a letter from HQ informing me that i was unsuccessful in my application to boards for the role of Sgt (this is like a paper application before having a job interview).

The same day i got a call from one of the people who did my interview for roads policing. With a "welcome to the department you have passed the board" which is a result for the first time i have ever sat a board. I am quite chuffed and have done my assessment drive which i also passed. So i am just waiting a date to join the department!

Not bad at all, and to be honest if i passed both i was going to withdraw from the Sgts. So hopefully in a few months i will be posing in the guise of a traffic bobby.