Police doubts revealed over £8m force modernisation programme

RADICAL plans to modernise Humberside Police will not produce a more effective force, a majority of serving officers believes.

The force is nearly half-way through a six-year programme of change that will see 311 officer posts replaced by 379 civilian staff.

The cost of implementing the Business and Workforce Modernisation (BWFM) project was estimated at more than 8m last year, and latest figures show it should deliver annual savings of over 2.2m once completed.

The scheme is intended to create a more efficient organisation, and in particular free up warranted officers to spend more time on front-line policing and less on administrative duties

But an employee survey has exposed deep divisions between officers and staff in their opinions of the scheme.

The survey found that only one out of every five officers (21.3 per cent) believe BWFM will have a “positive impact” on the force, in contrast to 71.3 per cent of staff.

Most staff, 82.6 per cent, thought the changes would reduce the administration burden on officers, but less than half that number of officers, 40.2 per cent, agreed.

And only a quarter (24.7 per cent) of officers felt the project would provide savings to invest in front-line policing, compared with 67.2 per cent of staff.

Just over half the staff (56.3 per cent) who were questioned felt they understood the process sufficiently to know how it would affect them over the next 12 months, while the figure for officers was 63.2 per cent.

The findings are included in a review of the project’s progress up to December 2009, which will go before the human resources committee of Humberside Police Authority on Tuesday.

The report said that it was “of some concern” that only 43.6 per cent of respondents believed staff would integrate to work alongside officers in the new structure of the force.

The poll also discovered concerns about the way the changes were being related to employees.

Face-to-face communication at all levels was “virtually non-existent”, staff queries about the process were “actively discouraged”, and some staff and supervisors had been given short notice about postings or moves.

Management concerns raised 16 different points, most relating to the use of civilian staff as “investigative officers” (IOs), who are being recruited to carry out many roles previously undertaken by detectives.

Managers complained that IOs were expected to produce high quality work with minimal training; officers were being “forced” to mentor the new IOs; and the mentoring was “haphazard” at best.

More positively, the review found the scheme had created more time for front-line policing in A Division (North East Lincolnshire) and B Division (North Lincolnshire).

A review of BWFM by the Office of Government Commerce gave the project an “amber” rating.

The inspectors said there was an urgent need to consider the project against other reforms of the force and to ensure these were being communicated effectively to stakeholders.

The changes are expected to give the force 1,669 staff and 1,910 officers in a combined total workforce of 3,579 by 2013, down from the current 3,867.

Humberside Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, has previously voiced concerns about the impact on the quality of policing.

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