SUPERINTENDENTS and chief superintendents in England and Wales are finding it difficult to keep on top of their workloads, their staff association has warned.<\/p>\n
Irene Curtis, president of the Superintendents\u2019 Association, said she is concerned pressures on her members are consistently increasing, while numbers have steadily fallen away.\u00a0A little more than three years ago there were some 1,600 officers in the two senior operational ranks – there are now only 1,250.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we have found is that our members are now undertaking much broader responsibilities than they used to,\u201d Ch Supt Curtis said. \u201cWe have members commanding BCU areas that used to have three chief superintendents and five superintendents now down to one chief superintendent and two superintendents.<\/p>\n
\u201cAreas of responsibility are huge. In terms of visible leadership, managing change and working with partners in big geographic areas or big departmental areas, these are big asks of people. What we are seeing is more and more of our members finding it difficult to keep on top of their workloads.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ch Supt Joanna Young is Secretary of the Metropolitan Police branch of the Superintendents\u2019 Association. She said: \u201cWhat I can tell you is that, across the board \u2013 and this may be totally unconnected \u2013 we have noticed a higher level of sickness among superintendents and chief superintendents and I have noticed more people seeking professional support. This could be as a result of pressures at work or it could be for other reasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are however concerned enough to say \u2018have we got this right?\u2019 We have raised it with the Met\u2019s management board, citing examples of the pressures officers are under. To be fair, the management board are looking at those issues and taking them seriously.”<\/p>\n
Ch Supt Young said all officers in the senior operational rank \u2013 similar to chief inspectors and inspectors across most forces – are being encouraged to record the hours they are working. She adds it is a source of \u201chuge frustration\u201d that some have not maintained this discipline.<\/p>\n
Every three years, the Superintendents Association of England and Wales carries out a \u201cpersonal resilience\u201d survey \u2013 where it quizzes members on levels of work and the pressures of the job.<\/p>\n
The last study in 2011 revealed that \u2013 out of 1,076 officers replying \u2013 nearly half reported some level of anxiety symptoms and over 20 per cent reported some level of depression symptoms.<\/p>\n
Some 57 per cent of respondents reported working 50-60 hours per week, 13 per cent said they had clocked up between 60 and 70 hours and one per cent reported working 70 or more hours per week.<\/p>\n
A similar survey is due next year.<\/p>\n
Ch Supt Curtis said she would now like to see from chief officers a greater \u201crecognition of the work our members are doing and consideration of the numbers\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mike Cunningham, Chief Constable of Staffordshire Police, is the national lead for workforce development. In a statement he said that senior leadership teams were \u201calways mindful of how financial decisions affect operational resilience, with any negative impacts being a cause for concern.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SUPERINTENDENTS and chief superintendents in England and Wales are finding it difficult to keep on top of their workloads, their staff association has warned. Irene Curtis, president of the Superintendents\u2019\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":663,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":706,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions\/706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}