Paperwork

As any officer knows, paperwork is a big thing with the police service.
There are forms for everything, and i mean EVERYTHING.
Need a new clip on tie as yours is broken then its a STO7 form, in duplicate and passed to the business unit. You will wait 4 weeks and eventually it will arrive.
Going out in a car?? then there is the car book to be completed, with every defect / damage listed. Fuel amounts entered, mileage entered.
The bulk of the paperwork is court files and you would not believe the amount of duplication involved!
There are a few differnt kinds of file, we have fast track guilty, where the offender has fully admitted the offence on tape. Fast Track not guilty, where the offender denies the offence but there is overwhelming evidence to say they did comit the offence.
Then we have full files where the offender is pleading not guilty at court.

From memory, a fast track guilty will contain the following:
TQ2 Anticipated Guilty Fast Track File Front Sheet
MG1 File front sheet.
MG3 CPS Advice - if it was saught.
MG4 Charge Sheet.
MG5 Case Summary.
MG6 Information to prosecutor ie compensation details.
MG11 Key Witness statements.
MG18 TIC form if any.
CID 1& 2 Crime reports.

A fast track not guilty will have the following:
MG1,
MG2 Initial witness assessment form.
MG3,
MG4,
MG5,
MG6,
MG10C Witness avaliability dates.
MG11 All statements.
CID 1 & 2

A full file will have the following.
CTS1
MG1
MG2
MG3
MG4 Bail Sheets
MG4 Charge Sheets
MG5
MG6
MG6 B, C, D and E Disclosure information for CPS
MG9 Witness List
MG10C
MG11
MG12 Exhibit lists.
MG15 Record of taped interview (A transcript of the taped interview)
MG18 if any TIC's
CID 1 & 2.

Alot of the information we input into the forms is duplicated, and quite time consuming as we deal with the paperwork inbetween responding to jobs comming in. Some files will take longer than others depending on the numbers of witnesses, the amount of exhibits such as cctv tapes. The disclosure paperwork (this has to be sorted into misc, confidential, and non confidential) takes a fair amount of time as it has to be right or the file goes nowhere.

All this inbetween being Proactive, Reducing crime, Arresting offenders, Providing a visible presence, and responding to calls.

Its surprising that there are any police out on the streets really.

But then we actually arn't alowed to be seen to be doing paperwork according to the shift Sgt. I sit down to do a file and get pounced on.
SGT "What are you doing"
Me "I'm doing a full file sarge"
SGT "Is that a proactive use of your time?"
Me "No, but it has to be done for the courts"
SGT "Can you justify your time doing paperwork"
Me "I'd prefer to be out, but this needs to be done"
SGT "Humpf" and walks off no doubt to write in his little book that i am in the station not being proactive.

One thing for sure, it's going to get interesting over the next few weeks with our 2 brand spanking new SGT's, both of which with no managment experiance. Both of which have not been working reactive shifts for at least 3 years each and seem to have the ideals reimplanted into their heads, of what a shift should run like, not what it does run like!