Too many police chiefs? - A review of police strength and costs in England & Wales 2010

INTRODUCTION

A widely held view from the front line of policing is that there are “Too many chiefs and not enough Indians on the ground”.

Officers report that their forces are top heavy with Chiefs and Senior Management ranks, causing confusion with a blurring of responsibilities. This causes inconsistencies in strategy with one Chiefs’ flavour of the month project being superseded by another, often opposite viewpoint, sometimes within weeks or months of the first being issued.

Officers feel that their forces employ an unnecessary number of police staff (civilian support personnel), who apparent sole purpose in life is to bury the front line, public facing officer with e mails, administrative tasks, data capture requests, box ticking and apparently valueless instructions that tie them up in administrative jobs, keeping them from front line duties..

Many front line experienced officers openly state that it is not a shortage of people or finances within the force that is the problem. They state there are adequate numbers to do the job, it is just that too many officers are assigned to non operational or clerical type roles when they should be “on the street” helping to reduce the burden of the front line response teams.

It is imperative that a closer examination of existing resources, Chief Officer, non operational and police staff be conducted. This report is intended to stimulate informed debate by taking a closer look at the numbers and ranks of officers and police staff engaged and highlighting for the first time, the cost by rank incurred by each force, and whether these costs represent the best value for money the tax payers pound can buy.

Over the pages that follow, we will provide detailed reports on officer numbers, split by rank and force, together with the costs that these numbers create. Interleaved between the reports we will provide explanatory notes with the findings, bullet point observations and a summary of observations.

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