It used to be thought that in order to do the top
job, experience in the industry concerned would be a useful asset. In government eg occasionally there is a
qualified doctor with ministerial rank at the Health Dept. Today that person is Dr Daniel Poulter
M.P. Generally previous experience is
not a pre requisite for a top government post especially with increasing
numbers of M.P.s having no job history
outside the limited boundaries of politics and/or journalism the main exception
being lawyers and even then the top lawyer`s job of Lord Chancellor is held by
a man whose main work experience has been in television production. It
would seem absurd if an individual could be spring-boarded into the job of colonel
in the army after less than two years of rigorous programming; or perhaps a headmaster being appointed to a
1,000 pupil school with the same amount of preparation. If I were a squaddie or
parent of a school age child I would view such proposals with a certain amount
of caution, apprehension and trepidation to say the least. But such is some of the nonsense emanating
from the so called thinkers deep within the Justice Ministry and Home Office that
very shortly the first trainee police superintendents will be amongst us.
Assurances have been given that only the highest fliers will be accepted for
the eighteen month preparatory course
and that failures will be easily got rid of
according to Commander Tom
Gavin Vice-Chair of the Police
Superintendents’ Association and part of the team designing the course who is quoted as saying, “It (the
training programme) will be very challenging and it will be very difficult to
come onto the programme and easy to come off it.” There is, to say the least, some opposition to
this proposal from those within the inner circles of policing. Another voicing his concerns is West Yorkshire Police Federation’s Chairman Nick Smart who said that the
“hasty move” would threaten not only the safety of officers, but also
the public. He warned that the move would have greater ramifications for
internal promotion through the ranks and would adversely impact the
credibility of the force. In an interview with PoliceOracle.com
Mr Smart said: “You cannot teach experience and you cannot buy
credibility and that is what they are trying to do here. It is a
danger for our officers. If they do not believe in the commander or
trust their decision-making the chances of harm and risk increase. “Operational commanders need to be warranted officers".
I am certainly in favour of improving the
quality of new recruits who wish to be in our police forces and thus improving
the standard of those who aspire to the highest ranks but parachuting in outsiders at
superintendent rank seems to me to be a futile short term stopgap to improve
the quality of “management”. Similar “management” initiatives have been
seen eg within N.H.S. and closer to home
in Her Majesty`s Courts and Tribunal Service.
I will leave my reader to consider whether this is a sensible action on
the part of our current rulers. For my part I doubt such a scheme will operate
for more than two or three years before some excuse is made for its abandonment
but extolling the wealth of benefits that nevertheless accrued whilst it was
operational…….metaphorical rags to riches to rags.
Whilst I understand the concern, I have worked in a number of organisations where the leadership always joined and worked there way through the ranks. If the aim is to produce a stable organisation that thinks the way it has always thought this will be an effective solution. If however you want to introduce change, or challenge the way organisations work - almost certainly the wrong person to do that is someone who has put up with the status quo for 20 years!
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