Supervision

HMIC have announced that Sergeants are not doing their job properly! Too much time is being spent on auditing and checking and not enough time supervising.

Well hello, this is not exactly a startling discovery. Lets face it, Pc's are spending far too much time doing paperwork, so in the bureaucratic Police Service, it's inevitable that the Ps's are going to have to 'check' all that paperwork.
My poor skipper, has to not only check all files that are complete, but also has to regularly check my ongoing investigations and add 'helpful' comments in the log, to prove that he has done so.

Now, in every walk of life, you get good and bad. A good skipper, will do the minimum of paperwork and get out on the street and supervise his/her troops. A bad skipper, will be tied to their desk and never see the light of day. Unfortunately, we seem to be promoting a lot more of the latter.

In my humble opinion, the Sergeants job, is probably the hardest in the whole service. They get sh1t from both ends and nowadays, have very little authority. I am aware of Sgt's trying to discipline Pc's, but getting no backing from those higher up the chain of command.

The fact of the matter is that there is no discipline anymore. When I joined in the 80's, there was two Sgt's and an Inspector on every shift. Nowadays, there is just one sergeant, (who is normally just acting up) and one inspector to cover the whole division. In reality, it means Pc's get no supervision. Most of the time we don't need any, however, there are always some who will take the pi55 out of the system.

I would love to go back to the old days of a disciplined service, but it isn't going to happen. Not unless, Chief Constables start to promote a lot more of the right sort of people!