WHY is the Police and Crime Commissioner not promoting the positive work of police officers? How will the PCC help improve sickness levels? Are the public currently getting the service they deserve from Essex Police?<\/p>\n
EssexFedFocus quizzed PCC Nick Alston (pictured) about these issues and more in a wide ranging interview, a little more than 12 months on from taking on the role.<\/p>\n
Read part 2 of our exclusive interview here.<\/p>\n
Have you gone out and spent a shift, a night shift, a whole shift on the front line with police officers?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes I have done some of it, but I\u2019d always love to do more\u2026<\/p>\n What do you see out on the front line there?<\/strong><\/p>\n I see lots of professional cops doing really rather a good job and some pretty bad behaviour from the public. Actually to be fair it’s not all bad. In Colchester [went out there in December] there was a lot of people having quite a good time. It’s interesting isn\u2019t it, because overwhelmingly you see most people having a really good time and improving interactions, actually between police in the public, and then you see what soaks up the police resource. So Colchester was not as lively as I feared it might be, but then you get one very drunk person with a bit of history, doesn\u2019t like the police, who then makes it their business to cause such trouble, giving lip, doing all the opposite, eventually gets himself nicked.<\/p>\n So in summarising, a lot of what you\u2019ve seen out on the street in professional and fantastic police work, but you\u2019ve had a big push on ethics and professional standards. We will start with ethics, why have you felt the need to drive the message about ethics in Essex?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think because for me it’s part of confidence. What struck me and it came as a shock at a public meeting in Colchester as it happens, a member of the public said at the end of this meeting, a very articulate member of the public said \u201cBut you haven\u2019t spoken at all about integrity.\u201d He said \u201cWhat are you doing about police integrity?\u201d I said I wasn\u2019t doing anything specifically about police integrity but part of my role is scrutiny and to hold police to account so it is embedded in it.\u00a0 It really caught me short and I didn\u2019t have an answer.\u00a0 He said \u201cYou haven\u2019t really thought about this.\u201d\u00a0 And I said \u201cI haven\u2019t really.\u201d\u00a0 And he said \u201cBut don\u2019t you realise the public don\u2019t trust the police anymore.\u201d\u00a0 He cited all these things like Hillsborough and Rochdale [sex abuse cases] and I really didn\u2019t have the answer at that meeting and he emailed me subsequently\u2026<\/p>\n So is this not just one man\u2019s view about incidents that are nothing to do with Essex?<\/strong><\/p>\n It was nothing to do with Essex. But I sat back as a result of that and thought \u201cWhat do I think of that?\u201d and I started to think around all of this, it did seem to me that there was a risk that at senior levels and those police commanders\u2026 I really wasn\u2019t sure where that moral compass was. It made me think about ethics and I started to think for myself you know who says what, and the words we use just trip off the tongue, you know \u201cwhat’s reasonable force?\u00a0 What’s reasonable to me?\u00a0 What’s proportionate in these cases?\u201d Another, completely different case, a woman at a public meeting in Clacton, with very deep concerns about use of Tasers and I\u2019d never thought hard about the use of Tasers – so where is the group that thinks about those things?\u00a0 Now for me, I now recognise that I am responsible for holding the Chief Constable to account on behalf of the people of Essex, so where\u2019s our sounding board? What’s the framework [where] we make that operate and it was back in Spring, I\u2019d started to develop the thinking that we needed to set up somehow, some way of creating an intelligent, reflective group who could help me and the Chief think about what the ethics of policing should be.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve also gone public about professional standards and discipline matters in the force?\u00a0 A lot of officers have seen that and they feel particularly with the ethnics push as well that they are all being tarnished with the brush of a few and asking \u201cWhy are you not coming out more publically and backing them.\u201d Where\u2019s the vocal support for the good majority?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think I could probably point to quite a lot of support for the majority, maybe I\u2019m not as good as I think I am, I put my hand up to that.\u00a0 I probably should do more direct communication, I should do more messages straight to Essex Police. I\u2019m very happy to do that. But they are getting to know me and my work, I’ve put all the \u201cwell dones\u201d on the website, perhaps I should do more but I do pay tribute all the time to the good work that they do.\u00a0 I do a lot of local radio work and I’m very careful to put, I think almost every comment I make in the context of the overwhelming amount of work that goes on day by day.\u00a0 I think we are quite good at that, but of course people only ever read and hear the negative bits. So I understand why they say that, but I think in fairness, I think I am very careful to say lots of good stuff is going on as well and of course the point is about trying to do this with openness and transparency. For me I find it pretty distressing to read about some of the serious cases, on the other hand they are a tiny number. Overwhelming we have 1.25 million calls to Essex Police, a hundred thousand things are crimed every year, so we have hundreds of thousands of incidents, we\u2019ve got five thousand employees, it’s not surprising to me that there’s a very small number of things that go wrong and we\u2019ve got a very small number of officers who get on the wrong side of the line, whether it’s in terms of conduct or even crime. So it’s my job to hold them to account, I’m going to do it publically [but] I am going to praise them because overwhelmingly they do a really good job.<\/p>\n Sickness levels have hit the headlines in Essex Police. What can you do to help improve that situation?<\/strong><\/p>\n For me it\u2019s about professionalism of management and it’s about have we got the most professional staff, have we got the best HR advise that we could possibly have, is everybody supporting our frontline officers as good as they can be? I\u2019m not sure. This s is a difficult point to make because I’m not suggesting that our police and staff are unprofessional, but can they be more professional?\u00a0 Yes I think they can with better training, with better management, with more thoughtfulness on all of our parts, just or try and make Essex Police as good as it can be.\u00a0 Getting everything optimised at the same time, getting our police officers in the right place at the right time with good managers, with good police support, with IT that works when it’s supposed to work, just trying to make all of those things as good as they can be, I think will make a difference and speaking up for them, I do speak up for them.<\/p>\n Do you have regular contact with Ministers? Do you speak to the Police Minister Damian Green on a regular basis?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes.<\/p>\n How often?<\/strong><\/p>\n Every two weeks. We have a conference call every two weeks \u2013 he quite often joins that. Conservative PCCs have a conference call every other Wednesday. Damian quite often dials into that. I see him quite regularly.<\/p>\n What are you telling him at these meetings?<\/strong><\/p>\n The meetings will usually be structured around a raft of different things. But I tell him exactly how I see it \u2013 the good, the bad and the ugly. The financial challenges\u2026 but they are not of this Government\u2019s making. And of course it is true. The savings have got to be made. I would certainly like the freedom to go above what was originally given, again the 2% [council tax] cap and I went up as much as I could.\u00a0 I would like to close the gap between us and the average again this year.\u00a0 If the gap between us widens, that\u2019s not a really good place to be for us in Essex.<\/p>\n Would you pressure more council tax precept to maintain officer numbers?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well I did last year.\u00a0 We\u2019re still right at the bottom more or less at the bottom of the level of preceptors, there’s still a gap, there are four hundred and fifty officers between us on the average.\u00a0 If we pay the average council tax in Essex, it would pay for another four hundred and fifty cops, that\u2019s a lot of police officers.\u00a0 So I wish we were paying a bit more, I don\u2019t know what cap the Government… even current plans are still a two and half percent increase which is above the two percent. \u00a0I don\u2019t know what the Government will do; I’ve got no insights on that.<\/p>\n Officers are telling me that with shrinking numbers, they\u2019re driving potentially travelling long distances to work shifts in places around the county and are you aware of the potential dangers of officers having to travel long distances, physically and financially. Is that something that you have been made aware of?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes I’m very aware of the issues to do with that and we talk about it quite a bit. Most of them are broadly happy with the freedoms they\u2019ve got now to live where they want to live. In the old days you didn\u2019t have those freedoms and there are choices to be made. But the chopping and changing is really… I regret it as much as in there has been a lot over the last year, there has been a lot of chopping and changing.<\/p>\n Changing officer roles and responsibilities?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, where they are all based. I think having a strong local focus; it makes a lot of sense. I completely understand why they tried the Blueprint model \u2013 I think it was the right thing to try. It’s clear that it hasn\u2019t worked that well so they are having to change again, but that\u2019s been going on for a very considerable amount of time, I’m not sure it’s stopped yet.\u00a0 I worry about the officers, either at the end of a very long shift driving home or driving fast when they are out on patrol having to respond, but I know the police are being very smart, it seems to me they\u2019ve responded really well in terms of trying to be flexible about where officers are based. I don\u2019t see that\u2019s going to be solved as a problem any time soon but I am aware of the challenges.<\/p>\n Are the public currently getting the service it deserves from Essex Police?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think it get a terrific service from Essex Police. Crime has come down, recorded crime has come down, reported crime has come down. The service levels have gone up and 999 calls\u2026 we have got to really well. The police are doing more.. we\u2019ve done quite a lot of [tackling] drugs and knife crime, [using] stop and search\u2026 police have been quite proactive. Solve rates have gone up significantly this year\u2026so solve rates up, crime rates down, responses are up\u2026 that\u2019s pretty good and well done Essex Police for delivering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WHY is the Police and Crime Commissioner not promoting the positive work of police officers? How will the PCC help improve sickness levels? 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