With eighty-three per cent of the policing budget being spent on staffing, it seemed likely that numbers would be reduced in the coming months. More than likely. If Fry had been a gambler, she would have called it a racing certainty.
So the big idea was to save cash through structural reforms, exploring the possible mergers of specialist units and back-office functions, sharing the purchase of expensive equipment and IT systems, forensic and legal services. Any merging of functions would have to be low profile, though, and needed spinning in the right way when it was announced.
An overtime and deployment review had been under way for some time. The police authority’s audit and resources committee was already looking at ways of providing value for money in policing. The addition of government budget cuts meant an ideal opportunity to look at streamlining costs. At least that was what the management team had called it in their emails – ‘an opportunity’.
It was all spelled out in the document currently sitting on Fry’s desk back in Edendale: ‘Policing in the Twenty-first Century: Reconnecting police and the people’. Her head resounded with phrases about mobilising neighbourhood activists, implementing radical reform strategies, stripping away bureaucracy in the partnership landscape…
The partnership landscape. Well, it was certainly a different kind of scenery from the one Ben Cooper harped on about endlessly. These days, her hills were mountains of paperwork, her valleys contained rivers of jargon, endlessly flowing. The only thing her landscape had in common with the Peak District was the number of sheep involved, and the amount of shit they left behind.
She was hearing more and more buzzwords as each day passed. Sacrifices, restraint, institutionalised overtime.
Fry looked at her companion. She really ought to get his name right, but he’d taken off his badge when they left Sherwood Lodge.
‘You know, when you’ve been in the job for a few years, everything seems to come full circle,’ he said. ‘It’s funny to watch the pendulum swinging. Take the question of force mergers…’
Force mergers. If she ever heard that phrase again, she would probably scream. Back in 2005, HM Inspector of Constabulary had pointed out that poor information-sharing between police forces had led to serious crime that crossed regional boundaries slipping through a gap. HMIC said that the forty-three-force structure was no longer fit for purpose, and proposed the creation of ‘strategic forces’. The result had been the government’s ‘superforce‘ merger plan, which had soon been abandoned in the face of local opposition and the cost of restructuring.
Full-scale force mergers were seriously unpopular with voters. The suggestion for a huge East Midlands Constabulary covering Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Bedfordshire had been dropped like a hot potato. No one wanted to see their local force disappearing into an unaccountable monolith.
Now they were discussing another report, which had also declared the structure of forty-three forces obsolete. But the answer to the problem was different. They pointed to figures showing that small police forces caught more criminals than larger ones. They suggested that the current forty-three forces should be split into around ninety-five, more than twice the present number, so that police forces could properly reflect their local communities. No mention of restructuring costs there. But Fry was willing to bet the budget cuts would count that one out too.
‘What’s your task after the working-group sessions?’
‘Demand management reports on control room processes for all five forces.’
He shrugged. ‘Good luck. Control rooms will probably be contracted out, like payrolls.’
‘You think so?’
Fry knew that payrolls had been contracted out to a business services company with a brick and glass office block on the waterside in Lincoln. Sorry – not an office block; a human capital management facility.
‘And, of course, we wait to hear the good news about front-line services. How many sworn officers will your force lose?’
It struck Fry that this was the only reason he’d wanted to go for a drink with her, the chance to talk to someone from another force about all his worries. A soulmate, in a way. But she’d hoped for a different kind of conversation.
She took a drink. ‘I’m leaving Derbyshire anyway,’ she said.
‘Oh? Where to?’
‘I thought I might try for EMSOU.’
The East Midlands Special Operations Unit had been set up nearly ten years ago to provide operational support for the Regional Intelligence Unit, helping to tackle serious and organised crime. It had initially covered only Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire. But the chief constables of the region had got together and agreed to expand it from two forces to five. The unit now employed officers and staff from all five areas, but there might be vacancies.
Then Fry remembered that the Home Office funding package for EMSOU and the Regional Intelligence Unit had come to an end this year, leaving Derbyshire and the four other forces responsible for all future funding. Probably not many vacancies then.
And then there were the effects of the recession. According to Human Resources, attrition rates had shown a sharp dip. That meant fewer officers leaving the job, and fewer openings to replace them. Candidates for recruitment to the police service were being told there were no vacancies at the moment due to the ‘economic conditions’.
Normally, candidates who successfully completed a two-day recruitment process and achieved a mark of at least sixty per cent in the National Recruiting Standards test were given a start date to attend their first day of training. But for some time now, such candidates had been told that their applications were going to be rescinded, and there would be no start dates for at least two years.
So a move back to the West Midlands, which had looked so easy a couple of months ago, was becoming a distant hope.
How many years had she been in Derbyshire now? Well, it was too many, anyway. Far too long since that transfer from Birmingham had brought her here, and a return to her old patch was way overdue.
Trouble was, while she waited, she was afraid she was losing her edge. After a while, you began to find yourself accepting second best.
Fry looked at her companion as he drained his drink.
‘Better get back, I suppose.’
5
There were older properties in Riddings, though they only dated from the first decade of the nineteenth century. Not old at all in Derbyshire terms. The Iron Age settlements on the moor above the edge made these cottages on The Green look almost futuristic.
To reach number four Chapel Close, Cooper had to park on The Green, leaving the Toyota angled awkwardly on the verge, right up against the steel posts that prevented him getting any further off the road. He supposed there would be complaints, but in Riddings it couldn’t be helped.
At least Barry Gamble was home now. He looked innocently surprised when he was asked where he’d been, as if he had no idea that anyone would want to speak to him again. He’d done his bit, and that was it. Cooper was amazed how often he had to disillusion people in these circumstances. Surely everyone must know by now that it wasn’t so simple?
‘I’m afraid not, Mr Gamble. There will probably be a lot more questions.’
‘Well, I suppose I’m an important witness.’
‘Absolutely.’
Gamble had bushy eyebrows that made him look as though he was permanently peering through a hedge. He wore a cowboy hat pulled too low, making his ears stick out, and he carried a stout walking stick, though Cooper could see no sign of a limp. When Gamble turned to lead him into the house, Cooper saw tufts of hair sprouting from his ears to match his eyebrows. The crown of the cowboy hat was circled by wooden beads.