Chief Constable Stephen Kavanagh – the first 100 days

WHAT are the chief constable’s plans for Essex Police? Will officers be moved around the county? How will sickness rates be reduced?

To mark his first 100 days in the role, Stephen Kavanagh spoke to EssexFedFocus on a range of topics, relevant to front line officers.

Click here to see the first part of the exclusive question and answer session.

After taking the job, you said you were going to spend 100 days listening and talking to people across the county – and officers and staff internally – before making any major decisions. How has that fact finding mission gone?

It has been a real eye opener. Both in terms of how committed so many people in Essex Police are but also the frustration that many of them had in that they felt they did not have a voice. And they were concerned the very senior levels of the organisation had become fractured from them.

So we had road shows where I got 800 supervisors in in the first six weeks and talked about leadership and what I’d be looking for from the force. We have got the chief officer team meetings for a second time, going round the districts – where we also have an hour and a half back on the shop floor, doing patrols, working with finger print operators and front counter staff, custody and get to know some of the problems going on.

I think we had stopped listening, stopped hearing some of the day to day problems. In addition to that we have got police officers and members of staff sitting in our chief officer group meetings. They hear what the issues are and what we are trying to do to deal with them. So all of that, together with going out on patrol – probably once a week I am out on some kind of operation with the troops. I am now meeting people for the second or third time and there is a growing understanding that although we have some difficult times ahead, with a voice, they are doing better.

I have been challenged by the troops saying “you want us to be the best at everything that we can be but we are going to have to pick some issues off to start getting up the scale.” There are too many areas – whether it is sickness, sanction detections or burglary numbers where we are too near the bottom of most similar forces. They are saying “why don’t we pick some off and focus on those.”

What are you focussing on?

We are focussing on burglary. We are focussing on sexual offences, robbery and domestic violence. Four areas we are going to push hard on over the next quarter. We have pushed MDT back out quickly, got solutions in quickly so they are now out with the roads team, response policing teams this month and then neighbourhood teams in October. We have pushed Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and the forensics pretty hard.

It feels as though we have been playing the game as though we were seven year like footballers, chasing the ball the whole time. What we have got to do is stop, think differently and say where is the ball going and anticipate. Using some of the technologies, forensics and more informed demand management is going to allow us to put our resources where they are most needed.

After the 100 days and the listening, you said you were going to outline your plans for the force for the next two maybe three years. Have you got to that stage yet? Officers are asking what are your plans?

The plans are to use whatever opportunity that we have more effectively. The two/three year piece is going to be built into the Comprehensive Spending Review piece. I am now saying I am going to give more responsibility and more accountability to the districts and the Local Policing Areas (LPAs).

Which means CID functions, we are going to try and move back into local delivery. Response (policing) is likely to move back into the LPAs instead of trying to do it centrally so that is a big change. As we do that, we are going to have to increase the accountability both through using technology and from clearer line management.

So, we are going to move back to greater levels of geographical responsibility, use technology and forensics to try and allow people to get their productivity up. So burglary is going to be a focus, robbery is going be a focus, sexual offences and domestic abuse – they are the things that are harming the county to the greatest degree at the moment. It’s not chasing the numbers for numbers sake. It’s having a more mature way to performance management.

Are officers going to be moved around again?

Every single officer I have spoken to has said we want geographical responsibility back. If we are going to turn round and say at some stage that response is going to return to the LPAs, whether or not that has a requirement to shift a limited number of people we will have to figure out. We will work that out in conjunction with our CSR 2 plan which I think we are going to call “evolve”. Rather than going for a quick, cheap, populist approach with the troops of going “you will have geographical back”. Custody is delivered well.

My concern is with CID and response, there is a lack of accountability, there is a lack of ownership – it feels like we are doing a conveyor belt of policing. A phone call comes in, everyone does there little bit and we have too many handovers and are not delivering a quality of service. To try and give that clearer accountability is going to be important.

How are you going to communicate any movements to officers?

This is not going to happen overnight, it’s not going to be a kneejerk. The thing that should please the Federation and the troops is that this is not a knee jerk. “We told him we were change fatigued. We wanted him to make changes but do it in a considered way.” That’s exactly what we are doing. We waited to see the scale of CSR2. We are going to build a greater level of geographical responsibility and try and find the savings we have got to for CSR 2.

According to HMIC cuts to policing budgets in Essex Police have “adversely affected the force’s ability to reduce and detect crime” – how do you improve that situation?

The geographical responsibility, the greater levels of ownership, reduction in handovers all play into the same piece. I actually think that was harsh from the HMIC. What happened was some really brave and bold decisions were made in an attempt to try and get a new way of delivering policing. When you make that change – like a new golf swing – you have got to practice it. The new way has worked in places like custody but it hasn’t worked in the way we wanted on burglary or response. Some of the issues that were undermining our reputation as a force are slowly beginning to change.

One officer has said, the minority of front line officers say they seem to be dealing with the majority of the workload – what are the plans, if any, to spread the pain and relieve the stresses?

I think for the last 170 years, front line officers have always felt they have taken on the majority of work. What this officer is saying reflects my concern – have we got productivity right, are all those officers doing response delivering to the same level? Are those in neighbourhood and crime teams contributing to the maximum? Where is the demand and what do we do with it? If I have got a clear demand profile, then I can say actually we haven’t got enough in the front line – then we can adjust it.

You have mentioned sickness levels in the force being high. What are you doing to get officers better?

Well some of them need help to be helped to get better and some of them are abusing the sickness management process. For those who are genuinely unwell, we are looking at how we support through occupational health and if necessary investing in occupational health to get them back. But I think if you look at the overall numbers compared to other forces, there is also a group – a small group but a group nonetheless – that are abusing the sickness management process. If they can’t get the time off, they take it sick. If they have a heavy night, on occasions they are taking days off – they will be challenged and if necessary they will be dealt with. What I want to do is have a sickness management process that supports those who are genuinely in need.

I want a force that has a heart. But every time someone throws a sickie they are letting their mates down, they are letting the community down. And the only people who suffer are their friends who then have to pick up their workload. You look at nurses. Broomfield Hospital, they average [seven] days lost a year in sickness. I think our officers are on 12 days a year average. We should be much better than where we are at the moment. I will be looking to work with the Federation to say how do support those who are genuinely in need and how do we work together to get people to stop abusing the system and overloading their mates.

Coming up in part two next month: Does Essex Police have enough officers? Will compulsory severance be an option for the force? Are police officers properly paid?