Metropolitan Police Service Reviews

Very poor senior management- weak decision makers who are over promoted and don’t understand the business at ground level and are completely disconnected and out of touch with the reality. They operate in an echo chamber full of self congratulatory back slapping and nepotism. Poor behaviour and bullying by senior ranks (Superintendents upwards) towards middle ranks is ignored and too difficult for HR or management board to deal with. Senior ranks are far too worried about upsetting people above them and the impact this might have on their own careers so don’t defend their teams or strive to manage demands by making difficult decisions. When junior ranks make mistakes they are treated much more severely and double standards are always at play. Teams in some areas are critically under resourced, many officer and staff are stressed and overstretched and trying to work with inadequate IT and equipment. Millions of pounds are wasted on projects that run for years and deliver nothing and no one is ever held to account for the waste of public money. A small minority of officers are badly behaved and processes to deal with them are inadequate and take too long. Pay and allowances are not commensurate to the burden of work, stress, impact on family life and more and more intrusive policies that impinge of an individual’s private life. I am in my 30th year and although I do not regret joining I would definitely not recommend policing in the Met as a career to anyone.

Bullying culture: managers would talk amongst themselves about staff who they line manage. Discussing personal circumstances which should really be kept in my opinion between line manager and employee. As a result the employee would be subjected to other managers scrutiny, watching there every move and reporting back to there line manager. Staff would be left feeling targeted and bullied as a result. Micromanagement: you would have a supervisor sitting at the end of your group of desks listening in to your 999 or 101 calls, they would then write a QA on your calls, sometimes managers would unnecessary nit pick at you front they way you speak to your wording or spelling mistakes on your computer log. You could get numerous Q's a day the supervisor on your pod to other supervisors/teams within your department. They say that it is chosen by random dip sampling, but I and many others of staff do question it. You do also get managers who see what is happening is not right, but they are scared to stand up to it in case they are treated in the same way. High staff turnover: due to bad management, disciplinaries due to sickness, which can occur due to frightened staff not wanting to take of sick leave because of being threatened with disciplinary action. Spreading the virus/illness around the office, causing a vicious cycle illnesses. Terrible shift patterns and stress due to the nature of the work and the micromanagement, staff turnover is high. Rock bottom moral: they will do staff surveys asking staff different questions about working with them. But then they would start to look into the answers and start to do focus groups for the different concerns, only to be abandoned after a while. Therefore nothing really changes. No work/life balance: every year the shift pattern would be revised and changed. Parents in particular with caring needs finds this a painful task, when they have to change there children's schedules around to adhere to the new changes they have to implement in there roster sometimes it may be that they would have to go part time or change part time hours. Having to go through flexible working panels a few times before there roster is reviewed. The normal roster for everyone else who doesn't have caring needs or medical issues is all over the place with 3, or sometimes more different start times within a week.