The road for a drink November 19

The chief returned from last week’s ACPO conference in a very solemn mood. The following day, he spent almost all of it shut in his office and we all thought something terrible had happened. It seems that someone from the Cabinet Office had collared him and bought him a drink in the bar, apparently the alcohol had the opposite effect than usual and was a very sobering experience.
I have always admired the chief as never flinching from controversy and he has always had a reputation as being unafraid of the most violent of criminals, yet if a civil servant can do that to him, I have to wonder what is coming down the track.
He said the whole conference was simply about saving money and what was likely to be savaged from funding either in the next CSR or when the Tories come to power. It seems nothing is safe and they plan to leave it up to chief officers to decide, down to whether they want PCSOs or not. He said some of his ACPO colleagues – you know the ones – are already talking in units and creating new measures of efficient deployment. The chief, meanwhile, firmly in the camp of the ‘back of fag packet calculation chiefs’, is trying to come to terms with it all.
I remember the days when we compared chiefs by whether they knew one side of a charge sheet from the other, or not. Now they get there so fast I doubt that some know where the custody suite is.
I suppose it’s a case of horses for courses and the modern service is now a world of marketing, business modelling and customer relations, in which graduates and careerist cops can thrive.
For me, two promotions in a career are actually, almost, enough. I have enjoyed the variety of the roles I have had, the status of rank has never appealed to me. The money is another thing, though it is never quite enough, no matter what rank you are. We have only one person going for the SCC this year and he’s had to have his arm twisted to apply. The only two others who are not close to retirement, and have shown any inclination for promotion, flatly refused because we don’t have a role for them in the near future and tramping across the country for promotion is not so appealing, especially as the money isn’t that different, not unless they applied to Norfolk of course.
And anyway, who’d want civil servants buying you drinks at conferences to warn you of impending doom and gloom?

Yours as ever,
Stitch