Govt Pensions Revealed

[Derek Flint]

12 hours ago, P.K. said:

What the hell do they do all day? Besides keeping an eye on their burgeoning portfolios.....

Back of a fag packet those eight coppers must be pulling down over £500k per annum. Add the bennies and it gets scary.

AND FOR WHAT???!!!

Someone in Gov needs to put them on a trowel....

A little bit more than 500k. Chief c.£140k (but it isn’t disclosed what the actual sum is). Supts nominally £70k, CI nominally £60k.

the biggest issue I found working in a low-crime, small jurisdiction is that the top had too much time to spend thinking, rather than doing. And then when they did “do” we ended up with another reform and reorganization. I think they are on with another one at the moment. 

We are due for a new Chief Officer in the next few years. The last real external influence was Mike Langdon, who arrived c.2005. It would also be good to start sending our senior bods on the College of Policing Strategic Command Course, to help with networking and a wider perspective. I can’t remember the last time the force was last externally inspected by HMICFR or whatever it is now.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some very good people, doing a great job at all ranks, but as with so much on the Island, it runs in an over-complex way. The job of the top team should be to make it as easy as possible for the boots on the ground to do their job.

[P.K.]

So does this latest re-org mean the previous re-orgs were misdirected failures...?

Looks like a classic case of "over managed and under-led" ie they're scratching around looking for ways to justify their overpaid existance.

It's clearly way too top heavy.

And to think I was merely citing the police force as just one example as to how the public purse is under totally unnecessary pressure!

It's clearly completely out of control...

[Andy Onchan]

16 hours ago, Derek Flint said:

The CC used to be paid 20% more than a UK Supt, in the days of Robin Oake. Then Mike Culverhouse came and it all went a bit “Rock Star” - company car, bonuses for low crime (which were outrageous). GR to his credit ditched the bonuses but kept the company motor. 

Several years ago, I suggested the DHA should take an “Emergency Services Commissioner” model, where there is an Executive  Chief across Fire, Police and Paramedic Services, with specialist service delivery officers (likely at Supt equivalent) for each area. 

I believe the Fire Chief out-earns the CC.

Either way, there is little doubt it has all gone the way as the rest of the Civil Service. There is now a Chief, three supers and at least 4 Chief Inspectors. And that model has changed at least four times in the last 10 yrs.

And how many sergeants?

[Derek Flint]

12 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

And how many sergeants?

Don’t know currently. But I can think of very few, if any who were doing a “non-job”

There are about 12 inspectors, who have to provide 24 hr cover for statutory and command functions. In fairness this also applies to CI and Supt, but they are much more infrequently called.

[P.K.]

@Derek - thanks for the overview. PK

[Non-Believer]

And whilst on the subject of PS positions and pay, today's Indy has a couple of nuggets within the first few pages alone, 4+5 for reference.

Onchan Commissioners refuse FOI request into the details of Michael Morrison's settlement and also deny that it has had any effect on the district's 2% rates rise.

And Caldric Randall has taken over Sheila Lowe's position as Gov's Chief Financial Officer. Ms. Lowe has moved to a new post as "Executive Director of Programme Management" within Cabinet Office. Does anybody know if this is yet another new-build job?

[Andy Onchan]

3 hours ago, Derek Flint said:

Don’t know currently. But I can think of very few, if any who were doing a “non-job”

There are about 12 inspectors, who have to provide 24 hr cover for statutory and command functions. In fairness this also applies to CI and Supt, but they are much more infrequently called.

Thanks Derek.

Does make you wonder how many 'Indians' there are to Chiefs.

[Andy Onchan]

2 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

And whilst on the subject of PS positions and pay, today's Indy has a couple of nuggets within the first few pages alone, 4+5 for reference.

Onchan Commissioners refuse FOI request into the details of Michael Morrison's settlement and also deny that it has had any effect on the district's 2% rates rise.

And Caldric Randall has taken over Sheila Lowe's position as Gov's Chief Financial Officer. Ms. Lowe has moved to a new post as "Executive Director of Programme Management" within Cabinet Office. Does anybody know if this is yet another new-build job?

It's a classic Chris Thomas appointment. He seems to have carta blanca and an open chequebook when it comes to recruitment. Makes you wonder if anyone in COMIN ever questions the costs or modus operandi of these positions. But no doubt it will all be part of CT's "strategic" policy for something or other.

Isle of Man Where You Can ..... have a building full of technocrats without worrying about the cost because some other poor bugger stumps up.

Edited February 7, 2019 by Andy Onchan

[Roger Mexico]

42 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

Does make you wonder how many 'Indians' there are to Chiefs [in the Police].

We do have the figures from the 2016-17 Chief Constable's Annual Report:

Chief Constable 1 [1]
Deputy Chief Constable 0 [0]
Superintendent 2 [2]
Chief Inspector 4 [4]
Inspector 12 [12]
Sergeant 33 [38]
Constable 155 [163]
Special Constable 35 [n/a]
Support Staff 75 [52]
Community Volunteer 28 [n/a]

[] is the 'establishment' figures, so they had fewer Constables and (especially, pro-rata) Sergeants than they 'ought', but the senior ranks were filled.  They did have nearly 50% more extra civil servants than they were supposed to though[1]

We don't know more up to date figures because the 2017-18 Annual Report is poor, pathetic shadow of its former selves.  While the previous year was 130 pages of detailed figures and commentary upon them, the latest offering is only 23 pages of half the size, and many of those pages are information-free: pictures of police cars, titles in exciting fonts.  There are even two pages of word-clouds, because nothing says IOM Government like a slightly-dated presentational technique. Though it's not clear what document(s) they are word-clouds of.

The excuse for this in the Chief Constable's cover document is that he has "become convinced that the impact of such lengthy and dense documents has declined".  Which we are probably meant to translate as "My previous Minister was an accountant who would read this stuff, but now I've got a thicko who just wants pictures of police cars that go broom-broom".  But even washing machine manuals are at a higher intellectual level, and this shabby excuse of a report just illustrates the contempt that we see for the public and politicians that we see in so much that gets churned out by civil service at the moment: "Here's some pretty pictures - now shut up".  As ever, the more 'communications professionals' they employ, the less that gets communicated.  Which may be reason for employing them.

There are some associated tables available, though they take a bit of finding and  the links from the Report no longer seem to work (if they ever did).  But it's a bit hit-and-miss what is included and staffing information seems to be missing.

[1]  To be fair they may be some confusion as to whether these are inflated by including part-time staff (rather than it being an FTE figure) and some of these may not be civil servants as such but retired police officers re-employed for some reason.

[yootalkin2me]

26 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

We do have the figures from the 2016-17 Chief Constable's Annual Report:

Chief Constable 1 [1]
Deputy Chief Constable 0 [0]
Superintendent 2 [2]
Chief Inspector 4 [4]
Inspector 12 [12]
Sergeant 33 [38]
Constable 155 [163]
Special Constable 35 [n/a]
Support Staff 75 [52]
Community Volunteer 28 [n/a]

[] is the 'establishment' figures, so they had fewer Constables and (especially, pro-rata) Sergeants than they 'ought', but the senior ranks were filled.  They did have nearly 50% more extra civil servants than they were supposed to though[1]

We don't know more up to date figures because the 2017-18 Annual Report is poor, pathetic shadow of its former selves.  While the previous year was 130 pages of detailed figures and commentary upon them, the latest offering is only 23 pages of half the size, and many of those pages are information-free: pictures of police cars, titles in exciting fonts.  There are even two pages of word-clouds, because nothing says IOM Government like a slightly-dated presentational technique. Though it's not clear what document(s) they are word-clouds of.

The excuse for this in the Chief Constable's cover document is that he has "become convinced that the impact of such lengthy and dense documents has declined".  Which we are probably meant to translate as "My previous Minister was an accountant who would read this stuff, but now I've got a thicko who just wants pictures of police cars that go broom-broom".  But even washing machine manuals are at a higher intellectual level, and this shabby excuse of a report just illustrates the contempt that we see for the public and politicians that we see in so much that gets churned out by civil service at the moment: "Here's some pretty pictures - now shut up".  As ever, the more 'communications professionals' they employ, the less that gets communicated.  Which may be reason for employing them.

There are some associated tables available, though they take a bit of finding and  the links from the Report no longer seem to work (if they ever did).  But it's a bit hit-and-miss what is included and staffing information seems to be missing.

[1]  To be fair they may be some confusion as to whether these are inflated by including part-time staff (rather than it being an FTE figure) and some of these may not be civil servants as such but retired police officers re-employed for some reason.

1 Sergeant to 5 Constables and less than 1Inspector to 3 Sergeants , is that the general ratio in the UK?

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, yootalkin2me said:

1 Sergeant to 5 Constables and less than 1Inspector to 3 Sergeants , is that the general ratio in the UK?

More or less it is.  If you compare the above figures to the latest totals available for England and Wales from the Home Office (July 2018) the percentages at each rank are pretty similar:

Quote

Chiefs	1	0.48%	497	0.42%
Superintendents	2	0.97%	877	0.75%
Chief Inspectors	4	1.93%	1558	1.33%
Inspectors	12	5.80%	5466	4.65%
Sergeants	33	15.94%	17905	15.24%
Constables	155	74.88%	91153	77.61%
Total	207	100.00%	117456	100.00%

For each rank it's Manx total (as above) / percentage of total / FTE staff available for duty in E&W / percentage of that total.  Chiefs includes Chief Superintendents in the E&W figures.

Clearly the Manx structure is a little bit more top-heavy, which you'd expect in a small place, but it's not a massive discrepancy.  I suspect there is some rule whereby Constables make up 75%, Sergeants 15% and so on and Forces tend not to stray too much from that.

[P.K.]

10 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

Clearly the Manx structure is a little bit more top-heavy, which you'd expect in a small place, but it's not a massive discrepancy.  I suspect there is some rule whereby Constables make up 75%, Sergeants 15% and so on and Forces tend not to stray too much from that.

I wouldn't expect it to be top heavy in a small place. I would expect it to be in line with the workload. Which is actually what they are there for.

The fact it IS top heavy is bloody ridiculous....

[Non-Believer]

26 minutes ago, P.K. said:

I wouldn't expect it to be top heavy in a small place. I would expect it to be in line with the workload. Which is actually what they are there for.

The fact it IS top heavy is bloody ridiculous....

And bonuses for low crime figures to boot.....

[Derek Flint]

10 minutes ago, P.K. said:

I wouldn't expect it to be top heavy in a small place. I would expect it to be in line with the workload. Which is actually what they are there for.

The fact it IS top heavy is bloody ridiculous....

Staffing a police force is a tricky business, and moves with the demand and type of business prevailing at the time. Gary has always been keen to keep his top posts filled, and indeed there has been a board for three chief Inspector posts just this week. Now some are due to retire within a few months, so I’ll let you make of that what you will. But I can’t recall any extended periods where the command team have has to suck it up so the lower positions could be kept filled. 

The sticky point is the statutory responsibilities - you need a CI or Supt on call for certain functions of PPP, and also to act as a strategic commander within some operations. The question is then what is a reasonable expectation as to the amount of time spent on call is. The Chief doesn’t do it, so that divides up between the 3 Supts and 4 CI’s. They do a week at a time, and have 30days leave each on average , so I’ll leave you to do the maths on it.

Similarly, the Inspectors have a statutory function (which is much more regularly called upon) and a tactical command function. They do 12 hour stretches, AM and PM, and have to cover 365 days a year as above. Some will also have other call out functions such as senior investigating officer for road death, and serious crime.

Then you get down to the sergeants. There should always be one in the control room as the Force Incident Manager, and one in Custody as the Custody Sgt. so that is two at any time before you start.then add a Douglas Sergeant, and there is a third. It goes on and on.

There are some roles at all ranks which could arguably be civilianised. The trade off is that you can’t drag a civilian from behind a desk, put a big hat on them and get them to go out and do cop stuff, when there is a need to surge, such as during TT.

So not as straightforward as might first appear...

 

 

[Derek Flint]

5 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

And bonuses for low crime figures to boot.....

Not any more. Gary binned that off to his credit.