What makes you angry?

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Today for me it was a TV program… It wasn’t the subject, the content or the quality of the show that got to me, at least not in an angry manner, it was the unconnected issues that were highlighted because of it…

I’ve just sat through an hour of very powerful TV - the first part of a two-part documentary about Harry’s Arctic Heroes - it left me feeling both proud and incensed…

Proud there are still some people in our little nation with a can do – will do attitude to life, prepared to push onwards & upwards, no matter what obstacles are placed in their way… Incensed that there are also so many who spend most of their lives sat on their arse, almost continually moaning and whining about the hand they were dealt in life and how society owes them.

How they were failed by the education system that didn’t understand them or, how outrageous it is that someone who is unemployable unemployed has to keep applying for work just to get their benefit payments. Much of this may be partly due to our social failures however; a great deal is still down to personal choice. Irrespective of what some lefty sociologist spouts at me from his/her designer pad in the West End of London.

I know I’m not allowed to be patriotic and/or believe in my Country any more, I could offend someone. I’m also fully aware that comments such as these mean I’m likely to be branded with some socialistic distasteful descriptive for ‘demonizing the working class’  or taking a pop at the less advantaged… I really couldn’t give a shit.

Whatever position you happen to enjoy/endure in our social dung heap of self-interested politics, bwanker economics and welfare excrement, much of what happens in life is down to personal choice and ability. When I hear so many in our society continually bleating about not having the power (or finances) to make the choices they want to make, it makes me want to vomit. Even more sickening and irksome when you consider how many people have died or been seriously injured in their name.

The program I watched charts the extraordinary attempt by four severely injured Afghan veterans to complete the first unsupported trek by wounded soldiers to the North Pole. The team actually completed their gargantuan adventure on Saturday April 16 2011 and you can read about the epic record-breaking expedition HERE. Prior to departure one member wrote…

Should I make it to the Pole it would not only be an achievement, but to me it would signify overcoming the injuries I’d sustained in battle…(Capt. Martin Hewitt Para)

I suspect, even for the totally able-bodied amongst us, the 1st day of training would have been A Bridge Too Far for most… Please make a donation in support of Walking With The Wounded, a charity dedicated to raising funds for the re-education and re-training of our wounded servicemen & women. Make a difference to their lives as a thankyou for protecting ours…(CLICK HERE)

Related articles

• Harry’s Arctic Heroes, BBC One, preview (telegraph.co.uk)
• Harry’s Arctic Heroes: the wounded servicemen Prince Harry helped to conquer the Pole (telegraph.co.uk)

Web Gossip and Privacy Rights

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Today Alex Hudson of the BBC asks: Is the web waging war on super-injunctions? “In the papers recently, a lot has been made of so-called “super-injunctions”, where even the fact that an injunction has been granted, or the name of the person applying for it, must be kept secret…”

The article goes on to examine and question the freedom and speed at which information can be shared via the internet. As a blogger and user of social media such as Twitter and Facebook, I would have to say these internet tools can be immensely useful for publishing your point of view to a wider audience than was previously possible, a kind of modern-day Speakers’ Corner Soapbox in Hyde Park.

Technology gives people the ability to band together and challenge authority in ways that were previously impossible.

However, anyone who chooses to speak out on any given subject, surely also has a moral duty to be factual and truthful? Here sits the major difficulty in that; much of that ‘personal’ opinion is often based upon the views of others, gleaned from internet sources, but not always factual and true themself. A modern-day gossip over the garden fence, tittle-tattle based upon little more than rumour and supposition. Having an opinion, worthy of being listened to, and open to debate and scrutiny, requires that it be based upon the research of facts, otherwise it is little more than hot air and rhetoric, a personal rant that rightly deserves to be dismissed out of hand.

In Hudson’s piece, the ‘experts’ and ‘activists’ from both sides of the ‘Social Freedom’ verses the ’Orwellian Control’ debate (expectedly) voiced their concerns. The rights and wrongs of Julian Asange and the Wikileaks debacle also reared its head again. It’s interesting that many of those, who constantly clamour for their ‘right to know’, would also be the ones just as vociferous if their every move was plastered all over the tabloids on a daily basis.

We all seem to crave information these days, about anything and everything, even when it doesn’t really concern us. We all want to have our opinion on others and about particular incidents, sharing it with our peers as fast as possible via the net however, we’re only happy when we’re in control of that information. Especially if the information being circulated concerns us as individuals.

It is my opinion that social media tools have a place in modern society. The internet has provided the means to more easily challenge and interact with those who manage our organisations and are elected to our governments. However, if you want to join a public debate about any subject, make sure your opinion is based upon fact and open to scrutiny. And after all, it is still only your opinion, we all have a right to our own one and we don’t necessarily have to accept yours.

On the specific subject of the ‘super-injunction‘; I find it a little difficult to swallow that people, who generally make a very handsome living out of selling their every move to the press, are only happy when they have control over it. Phrases such as ‘people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’ spring to mind and in any case; I for one couldn’t give a flying toss about which footballer has or hasn’t shagged whichever kiss and tell wannabe bimbo! Why would you?

Related Articles

• Lifting the lid (bbc.co.uk)
• Personal privacy is a thing of the past, so you’d better get used to it (guardian.co.uk)
• National press goes on the attack over privacy injunctions (newstatesman.com)
• Court injunctions that prevent the little people from gossiping about celebs are a flashback to feudalism (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
• BBC ‘censors’ Have I Got News For You over footballer gagging order blunder (telegraph.co.uk)

Police cuts: yesterday’s news?

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On the 6th December 2010, North Yorkshire‘s chief constable, Grahame Maxwell, told the BBC that in light of enforced fiscal constraint; he was looking at “restructuring the organisation.”

In his previous force (South Yorkshire Police) he introduced a new ‘performance framework’, ‘restructured’ policing in Sheffield, assisted in introducing Neighbourhood Policing force-wide and was instrumental in driving the Force’s overall change programme.

On his appointment to North Yorkshire Police in May 2007, many of the rank and file saw him simply as the Police Authority’s ’hatchet man’, someone who would save money in any way he could and as fast as possible. Staff have commented on his apparent quoted intention; ‘to fully implement all the budget cuts required (by government over a four-year period) within six to twelve months’???

The methodology would appear to fit with his CV thus far however, wouldn’t it? These thoughts now appear to have come true.. In reality, Mr Maxwell has been doing little else other than ‘restructuring’ during recent years, apart from getting in hot water whilst manning the NYP recruitment line that is…

York Press: NORTH Yorkshire’s chief constable is to face a charge of gross misconduct at a disciplinary hearing following claims he rigged a force recruitment drive to benefit his own relatives…(Read more)

During the recent years of his career, Mr Maxwell has done little to endear himself to the workforce locally, or indeed the frontline of the service nationally. As the head of the ACPO Finance and Resources business area since 2009 this is hardly surprising. Especially when you consider, how heavily involved in the future shape and funding of the police service he has been. I and many others are wondering; if there’s supposedly a four-year window for many of the cuts, why is Maxwell in such a rush to make those savings?

Is there some personal driver other than one of efficient business management? Could there be some desire to quickly obtain further ‘evidence’ of capability for impending job applications? Whatever the driver, let’s return to the actual and important issues affecting North Yorkshire…

At the back-end of last month the local media was full of reports about police cutbacks and the possibility of redundancies. Everyone appeared to be interested in how the government austerity measures were going to impact upon local services. However, it appears the ‘red hot’ journalistic scoops must have dried up. Given the importance of the issues to our communities you should be asking, why is this?

Recently I posted about the redundancy plans at North Yorkshire Police, in so much more than just job losses, I also commented on the managers speaking with forked tongues. For some time now I’ve held a suspicion that the force management have been, economical with the truth, whilst ’consulting’ their staff and just engineering ‘positive spin’ when talking to the media.

The management of the force has consistently informed staff, “we’re just considering the options” when asked about restructuring and job losses. Despite the fact many saw the writing on the wall early in 2010, the management speak has actually proved to be totally dishonest. They have known exactly what their decision was, long before any open addmition to media or staff. It was therefore unsurprising that Mystic Ethel’s predictions during the middle of last year have actually come to fruition!

Around about the same time the Chief Constable‘s intentions were starting to leak out, and the possibility of redundancy was worrying many members of police staff, the HMIC Roger Baker QPM addressed a large audience of UNISON Officials at their National Police and Justice Conference in October 2010 where he said…

“North Yorkshire Police force is the only force in England and Wales who do not have to make any compulsory redundancies to find the required financial savings the government require” (HMI Roger Baker)

It is now two weeks since the staff at the Police HQ Control Room in Newby Wiske were told their jobs had been identified for redundancy and the control room would be closed. Since that date there appears to have been a sudden media blackout. Indeed, the previous force policy of ‘openness and honesty’ when dealing with the media appears to have been constrained somewhat. There was a time when any member of staff could talk to the press, so long as it was factual, honest and within the bounds of relevent legislation, not so now.

I understand from my various sources that recently, a ‘gagging order’ instruction has been issued to all staff in the force. It basically prevents any communication with the press about the current situation, unless it has been passed by the ‘Corporate Communications’ Department. For the past six months or so now, the staff at both control rooms (HQ & York) have had their job descriptions and posts interpreted and defined in different ways by senior officers (in true politician style); usually dependant upon the format of any question raised by the staff or the media.

• Its a single department based at two sites.
• Its a ‘virtual’ operation and location is unimportant.
• The staff at the two separate locations perform the same role.
• The staff at the separate control rooms have different roles.

What are they trying to hide all of a sudden and more importantly, why? Lets look at a timeline of some of the media output…

BBC (13th Oct 2010) : Looming government spending cuts will lead to fewer police on the streets of North Yorkshire, the county’s chief constable has warned. – Back office services, including personnel, finance and IT, would have to be run on a regional basis in collaboration with colleagues in the West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Humberside forces.

“You cannot make a 25% reduction in your budget without affecting front-line service delivery.” (Grahame Maxwell)

“The public will see reduced levels of policing.” (Grahame Maxwell)

“It is going to be a very different service and we are going to have to think differently about how we are going to deliver it.” (Grahame Maxwell)

Unsurprisingly this initial piece ticked all the boxes of the ACPO corporate message. It’s the standard message that was tripping off the tongues of senior officers up and down the country since the austerity measures were first announced. It continued, despite a comment from the HMIC in October. The BBC (21st Oct 2010) reported that…

Up to 300 posts could be lost at North Yorkshire Police as a result of the cuts outlined in the governments Spending Review, the forces chief constable has said.

Mr Maxwell (and many other ACPO officers) continued to blame the government for cutbacks to frontline services. The senior officers of the nation refused to accept that; many of today’s failures in policing delivery actually sit with them, not the government. They are the captains who have been steering the ships! Their denial has however waned slightly of late, especially since they noticed the government and media led public backlash about the possible effects to frontline services.

BBC (13th Jan 2011): North Yorkshire Police has started a consultation process about staff redundancies. Talks will take place with unions during the 90-day consultation and then staff will be informed of changes.

“I can give my assurance that the redundancy process and restructure will be handled sensitively and professionally.” (Grahame Maxwell)

BBC (26th Jan 2011) : One of the control rooms which handles 999 calls at North Yorkshire Police could be closed as part of cost-cutting measures, it has been confirmed. The force said it was reviewing its control room provision, with a view to either retaining the existing sites at Newby Wiske and York or closing one. The force said any decision would be based on “maximising efficiency” while continuing “a high-level of service”.

“The options that are being explored include retaining the current two control room sites at Newby Wiske and York, or removing one of the two sites.” (ACC Tim Madgwick)

“While the consultation process is ongoing it would not be appropriate to go into any more detail at this stage, other than to say that any decision will be based on maximising efficiency while continuing to provide a high-level of service to the public.” (ACC Tim Madgwick)

Still no admission of their long-standing intention, despite the fact staff already knew and, when confirmation did actually surface, many of them found out from social media sites such as Facebook and/or the more mainstream media. The word ‘disgusting’ doesn’t even start to address the way they have been treated.

On the 31st January 2011, UNISON voiced their concearnes about the enforced redundancy proposals in a letter to both the Chief Constable and Chair of the Police Authority. A copy of the letter, which I have seen, was circulated to all staff last week…

We believe the force will be making its staff and Officers vulnerable when performing their jobs due to the lack of support and an untried centralised control room that we believe, will be under staffed, under greater pressure and vulnerable to technical failures which have occurred in the past. (John Mackfall, Branch Secretary)

Obviously UNISON represent all of the police staff, not just those who work in the control rooms. Despite their previous lacklustre performance in fully representing the issues affecting their 24/7 members or those who are required to work shifts, it is refreshing they have finally woken up to smell the coffee and realise the dire consequences of the senior management teams methodology.

 

The police branch of Unison believe policing across North Yorkshire will be seriously hit by the cuts, which would also include about 310 staff redundancies in the first half of 2011. (York Press)

I would suggest the North Yorkshire Police redundancy debacle is simply further evidence to support the widely held theory that; ACPO members have more self-interest than concern for the future of the service, or the staff they are responsible for leading!

Related Articles

• Control from Z-Victor1? (bankbabble.wordpress.com)
• Managers speaking with forked tongues! (bankbabble.wordpress.com)
• You: Police chief faces nepotism charge (guardian.co.uk)
• Time for discipline investigations to defy the laws of gravity? (bankbabble.wordpress.com)