July 2002 Volume 83 Number 7 "serving the protectors"
By Trevor Haskell PASA Vice President

Where to from here?

I have the opportunity to speak with a variety of police officers in my Welfare role. The opportunity to talk with groups in training allows me to get some interesting feedback about how they see things in their work areas. Being on the Police Association committee, I also have the opportunity to visit interstate police and discuss their issues with them at their union conferences.

I have recently returned from the Police Association of NSW conference, at which some things caught my attention. First, the similarities were obvious after hearing the PANSW president, as well as the minister and shadow minister, give their opening addresses.

Staff numbers on the road were agreed by all to be too low. Particular crisis areas in the country, and metropolitan “hard-to-fill” stations, were well known. Prosecution services provided by police were creating health issues. Promotion and selection was the source of many complaints about lack of fairness and openness, and was going to be fixed.

Workers’ compensation claims – or hurt-on-duty claims as they are called – are a major frustration, with every psychological or emotional damage claim seemingly rejected and the subsequent appeal process taking 12 to 18 months. Management clearly has significant influence over the acceptance of individual claims, to the angst of the worker and union staff. The discipline system was heavy-handed and to be reformed.

These issues were very similar to those I saw raised at the WA union conference last year. From talk among the 100 or so attendees, it became clear that the issues raised in the opening speeches were on the mark.

While management interference with workers’ compensation is relatively rare in SA, it does happen. But, in NSW and WA, it appears to be the norm.

Our workers’ compensation process stands up well, despite needing some reform (Changes to workers’ compensation – a warning to members, Straight to the Point, June 2002). We know that, when senior management meddles in cases, it creates increased cost for all and usually the loss of a worker. But it usually only happens in high-profile cases. The NSW Police health and welfare support services appeared to be fragmented.

The debate on numbers seems to be similar to the one in SA. Yes, there have been increases in numbers, but where have they gone? They also lack the capacity to have a factual census of where workers are. There are apparently more on-road positions than there were before, but no more bodies in the positions.

The workers and managers at the conference clearly believed that there were pet projects that allowed members to be seconded without ever seeming to reappear. There exists some debate about the personnel required to accommodate intelligence-led policing. Interestingly, particularly for those who were about in the 1970s, they are to realign their regions and LACs (local area commands) with council boundaries to try to create better community service linkages and, of course, provide cost-efficient use of police services.

NSW has followed WA in trying to entice members to hard-to-fill country locations with an extra payment. In WA, it is a guarantee of four hours’ overtime per week and, in NSW, it is an annual lump sum payment of $5,000 after minimum tenure (two years) is over. The people from the hard-to-fill who were intending to stay anyway thought it was a great idea. Those who had gone bush to get promotion were very clear that it was two years and back to the big centres with their promotions set. No one seemed to be enticed to leave town for the promise.

Discipline was a feature that took the interest of all attendees. In NSW, they have two oversight bodies: the Police Integrity Commission (PIC) and the Ombudsman.

The PIC appears to be seen in a similar way to that in which some see our Police Complaints Authority (PCA) – not the timeliest, well-carried-out investigations, predictably anti-police, secretive (seeking new covert powers) and a law unto themselves with little real oversight.

The Ombudsman’s Office was seen more positively, and it appeared to be able to get involved in more personal issues of health and welfare, as well as some reporting function on discipline. Put briefly, I think people would like to see the PIC disappear and its functions taken over by the Ombudsman’s Office.

A new model for disciplinary process was presented. It had been trialled with great success in some areas and many (including all interstate visitors) were in awe of the success rates claimed (mediated results not charges).

The new process is less adversarial and blame-focused, and centres more on remedial aims. The process forms around complaint management teams that are made up of regional workers who oversight all complaints. They investigate not only the officer’s behaviour complained about but also circumstances of the complainant, the structures involved, the officer’s history, and anything of potential influence. They try to identify what happened but, more import, why it happened.

The system sounded wonderful, but there was a proviso – it required open-minded managers to make it work. We will get a copy of the policy and consider it.

Promotion and selection, and indeed the whole area of human resources, were critical points for all speakers. Needless to say, most had heard it before: “We acknowledge that the people of the NSW Police Force* are the most valuable asset.” Those in conflict over selection and promotion or hurt-on-duty injuries found this somewhat shallow. They definitely do not have the solutions at this time.

They use a floating pool of prosecutors in some areas, and this can dampen down hot spots. The prosecutors I spoke to thought it was a good try but did not relieve high case loads, poor preparation times and the likelihood of errors. Stress-induced illness is an issue.

It is interesting that the NSW Police Force has seemingly gone down a similar path to others in trying to work out how to get people to go to hard-to-fill places. They survey those who are already there. It would seem to me the issue is that, if officers are not applying, why are they not applying? This is a process that continually befuddles me.

We can’t get people to go to prosecution, so how do we find out what inducements might make sense – talk to those not in prosecution, not those who are in it. The incumbents certainly can explain the real problems of being there, but only guess as to why others do not want to go there.

This raises the real issue of human-resource management – understand your people. Good managers actually know the people around them and see them as peers; there is two-way trust and respect. Autocrats know, apparently instinctively, what is best for us and then wonder why we get upset when they tell us what we need.

The NSW commissioner spoke of a sharing with the union on seeking a way forward. He is a life member of the union and has several immediate family members in on-road police positions. The Police Minister appeared to be hands-on, and they both talked of the success of a tripartite approach that was refreshing.

*They have resumed, with some fanfare, calling it a force.

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