29 replies to this topic

[Pete999]

From my personal experience and from what a friend who is a MSC, I have found specials work best when posted with a regular and are managed by regulars. As a S/Sgt or S/Insp can't be in every day it is very difficult for those who don't work the "normal" hours of a Friday or Saturday evening to see their supervisor.

My friend has never met her S/Sgt in the two years of being a special. She had been told that the only person who can sign her book is a regular Sgt (unless a MSC was a witnessing officer.)

With Boris Johnson looking to double the amount of MSC's in the next 4 years if he wins the mayoral election, I can't see how it is possible for just a handful of people to manage that many people on their borough with just a couple of shifts per week. A single response team has a number of Sgt's and an Inspector to supervise around 20-30 people between them.

I also don't feel it is fair (yet some may not agree) that a volunteer should be expected to spent their free time doing paperwork to such an extent when they will probably prefer to be out on the street.

Are S/Sgt's and S/Insp's needed? Probably yes but to be out on the street helping their less experienced colleagues and setting an example to all. The limitations in law make the actual rank null (such as setting up a S60 or PACE regs for authorising a S18), but that doesn't mean they can't be there to lead a team.

[Ben.]

I think it is very hard to form a answer on this, due to the fact that every BOCU is run differently, so their respective Specials are used to that way of it being run. I know for a fact I would not be where I am today if I did not have my three MSC Managers (full time).

I don't want to say yes or no to the answer if I am honest, as for example SBG is one of the few Special Inspectors I know who run their department very well and he gives a lot of his time, dedication and commitment to the role.

Then again, you could argue could SBG job be transferred to a BOCU, as he is in a specialised unit so I am sure things run differently compared to a borough? It's a very very hard question.

[TroyTempest]

Agreed. An MSC Inspector in most cases couldn't keep the same level of service (i.e. has a day job to contend). Perhaps the role needs to look entirely different? If the MET is going to recruit from the MSC on an ongoing basis it would be worth their while having a permenant member of staff in much the same way that the MSC managers work at the moment. If their role continues perhaps the current role of the MSC Inspector will evolve to something quite different in future. I'm hoping it becomes more dynamic, more involved and less admin. The MSC can benefit from 'one of us' leading from the front. Perhaps seeing an MSC Insp out on shift every weekend will be the norm rather then seeing them filling in forms behind a desk each week. I hope so!

I'd have agreed with you for the training of new PCs but, the job isn't going to fund them and after what I've heard about in the last day about how the perception of the SC to PC conversions have gone on at Commander level I think without even more investment the days are numbered for the whole process. It may or may not happen but the noises aren't positive. One person even started to suggest that the newly converted officers should be sent back for more training!!

It's also worth noting that many people who comment on how this can't possibly work have never experienced the process any other way. Perhaps S/Insp could and would do more if they had been on the whole treated very poorly by the incoming regular line management. Yes a generalization but one that's formed by speaking to many people with more than 3 years service on lots of different boroughs.

The other thing is, there are plenty of Specials who hate the fact that other Specials are managed by others and that only regulars should be used, as the saying goes haters gonna hate. I used to work on a borough where I saw one chap who I would only ever see at the line meetings always complain that we should be aligned to regular teams only, because this is what he did and he was the only officer based at one of our nicks, everyone else was based at one and two or three others at another. He never *ever* came up with any other solution, so what about people who can only work evenings? Or can't align themselves to a regular team shift pattern because they themselves are shift workers. "We should be managed by regulars", well thanks for adding nothing useful.

Where I worked originally under a S/Insp, we had a great team spirit, we worked hard, we ran operations, we pulled in the bodies, we had a mentoring team, we had a PDP in the days before any standard approach to IPS which you had to complete before being able to work with the regular teams. We had some cracking socials too. From what I understand now it's a shell of it's former self. I'm not saying that it was perfect, far from it, but it was pretty good and there wasn't a regular in sight.

[Numpty]

IMHO the move to management by regulars was aimed to formalise a system that had worked well in some boroughs (sounds like where Waid started and where I started). But it was unlikely to work out like that because so much of that stuff works on human interaction and goodwill.

So in some boroughs the new system seems to work well but in others the new managers ending up tearing down a very good system.

Organisations like the MSC will always depend on goodwill because we are doing this in pur spare time!!

[crunchybits]

In the last two years the MPS have had 1000 MSC officers reach IPS given over 100,000 hours of supervisory input. Every single MSC officer could be given about 3 hours of personal supervisory attention every month but I doubt that happens. Contrast that to the amount of effort in developing officers on a team then you can see that MSC Base Managers have been a very patchy corporate investment.

If you have a look at the number of officers that leave the service each year (circa 20%), the large number not doing their hours (over a third as an educated guess), the significant number that are not current on ELS/OST then how much sustainable change has the MSC Base Manager investment delivered. The MSC Insp used to do all the above for free.

We are seeing on this board that the corporate approach that 64 Base Managers should bring is patchy. Given the number of BOCUs that are not meeting the minimum MSC standards how much of the investment in Base Manager may have been better off spent training the MSC supervisors and giving them administrative support. Rather than paying regular Sgts to perform predominantly administration tasks.

Before anyone runs away with this I can and do fully support the fuller engagement of the regular service with the MSC and in light of the SC to PC process you need a quality gatekeeper in place.

(The investment of the MPS in the corporate systems to support/resolve this MSC administrative overhead seems to be a little light since the MSC now represent 20% of the commissioned workforce)

Edited by crunchybits, 04 April 2012 - 12:33 PM.