Tarique Ghaffur to sue Met, MPA for racial discrimination

[detective-boy]

If that was indeed the case, what would you look to change within the Met?

Virtually everything. Whilst studying for my MBA I realised that the organisation was disfunctional in virtually every area.

Many of the problems afflict any large organisation, but many are unique to the police service, and some to the Met specifically. Organisational communication is generally poor - there's usually too much, based on the premise that "We've told them, therefore we're covered". Financial systems are a nightmare and are directly responsible for the organisations inability to change in many ways. Centralisation -v- localisation of control is a recurring issue, but unfortunately there never seems to be an attempt to balance the two but a pendulum swing from one to the other with every change of regime. Risk aversion (as identified by Ronnie Flanagan) undermines much that would otherwise be good. A blame culture (largely driven by external factors such as media / politics) is endemic. Bureaucracy is a fucking nightmare, particularly the continuing saga of IT systems which do not talk to each other (Prediction: The latest fad is mobile data terminals. There is loads of money for them. Every force is spending it. There are at least a dozen suppliers, all peddling slightly different variants (which, largely, are incompatible). There is no central procurement (despite the existence of several agencies claiming to be precisely that). There will be 43 (at least, don't bet against some forces having more than one system themselves!!) different systems. About ten years from now there will be a report on what a fiasco it has been. Get down Ladbrokes and put the mortgage on it now ...). There is too much focus on "performance indicators" (again largely driven externally) which are not aligned with service quality, etc. There is little or no attention paid to customer (and that means victims and witnesses, not prisoners) satisfaction and service QA. Officers are increasingly given more training and provided with less skills (a neat trick if you can do it!). There is entirely inadequate first line supervision (sergeants and inspectors) and there has been since PACE was introduced in 1984 and took hundreds of sgts into the custody officer role without them being replaced...

I could go on for ages. It really is that bad ... every day I get a little more pessimistic that it is retrievable ... we will just have to get used to the fact that the police service we used to enjoy and expect has gone forever.

 

[ajdown]

That's because it's a myth. You'll observe the contradictory claims made by Mr Down that (a) white men are positively discriminated against; and yet (b) no/few successful employment tribunal claims where the Claimant is white.

Perhaps that's because we don't go running to the press all the time crying 'discrimination' about it. We just sigh, realise there's very little we can do about it, and get on with life.

Discrimination against white men is not a myth any more - it's going to be made into a legal requirement, if you've been following the news... unless, of course, we manage to get it thrown out.

 

[baldrick]

(((white men)))

Why don't you care about other people, who aren't white, being discriminated against too?

 

[cesare]

Perhaps that's because we don't go running to the press all the time crying 'discrimination' about it. We just sigh, realise there's very little we can do about it, and get on with life.

Discrimination against white men is not a myth any more - it's going to be made into a legal requirement, if you've been following the news... unless, of course, we manage to get it thrown out.

Perhaps if you were to give me some actual examples of white men being systematically discriminated against, it would be easier to see where you were coming from.

 

[Fictionist]

Virtually everything. Whilst studying for my MBA I realised that the organisation was disfunctional in virtually every area.

Many of the problems afflict any large organisation, but many are unique to the police service, and some to the Met specifically. Organisational communication is generally poor - there's usually too much, based on the premise that "We've told them, therefore we're covered". Financial systems are a nightmare and are directly responsible for the organisations inability to change in many ways. Centralisation -v- localisation of control is a recurring issue, but unfortunately there never seems to be an attempt to balance the two but a pendulum swing from one to the other with every change of regime. Risk aversion (as identified by Ronnie Flanagan) undermines much that would otherwise be good. A blame culture (largely driven by external factors such as media / politics) is endemic. Bureaucracy is a fucking nightmare, particularly the continuing saga of IT systems which do not talk to each other (Prediction: The latest fad is mobile data terminals. There is loads of money for them. Every force is spending it. There are at least a dozen suppliers, all peddling slightly different variants (which, largely, are incompatible). There is no central procurement (despite the existence of several agencies claiming to be precisely that). There will be 43 (at least, don't bet against some forces having more than one system themselves!!) different systems. About ten years from now there will be a report on what a fiasco it has been. Get down Ladbrokes and put the mortgage on it now ...). There is too much focus on "performance indicators" (again largely driven externally) which are not aligned with service quality, etc. There is little or no attention paid to customer (and that means victims and witnesses, not prisoners) satisfaction and service QA. Officers are increasingly given more training and provided with less skills (a neat trick if you can do it!). There is entirely inadequate first line supervision (sergeants and inspectors) and there has been since PACE was introduced in 1984 and took hundreds of sgts into the custody officer role without them being replaced...

I could go on for ages. It really is that bad ... every day I get a little more pessimistic that it is retrievable ... we will just have to get used to the fact that the police service we used to enjoy and expect has gone forever.

That sounds pretty horrid.

Thanks for taking the time to answer DB - when I looked again at my initial post I realised that it could quite clealry be interpreted as being driven by sarcasm - when it wasn't.

 

[Gixxer1000]

Virtually everything. Whilst studying for my MBA I realised that the organisation was disfunctional in virtually every area.

Many of the problems afflict any large organisation, but many are unique to the police service, and some to the Met specifically. Organisational communication is generally poor - there's usually too much, based on the premise that "We've told them, therefore we're covered". Financial systems are a nightmare and are directly responsible for the organisations inability to change in many ways. Centralisation -v- localisation of control is a recurring issue, but unfortunately there never seems to be an attempt to balance the two but a pendulum swing from one to the other with every change of regime. Risk aversion (as identified by Ronnie Flanagan) undermines much that would otherwise be good. A blame culture (largely driven by external factors such as media / politics) is endemic. Bureaucracy is a fucking nightmare, particularly the continuing saga of IT systems which do not talk to each other (Prediction: The latest fad is mobile data terminals. There is loads of money for them. Every force is spending it. There are at least a dozen suppliers, all peddling slightly different variants (which, largely, are incompatible). There is no central procurement (despite the existence of several agencies claiming to be precisely that). There will be 43 (at least, don't bet against some forces having more than one system themselves!!) different systems. About ten years from now there will be a report on what a fiasco it has been. Get down Ladbrokes and put the mortgage on it now ...). There is too much focus on "performance indicators" (again largely driven externally) which are not aligned with service quality, etc. There is little or no attention paid to customer (and that means victims and witnesses, not prisoners) satisfaction and service QA. Officers are increasingly given more training and provided with less skills (a neat trick if you can do it!). There is entirely inadequate first line supervision (sergeants and inspectors) and there has been since PACE was introduced in 1984 and took hundreds of sgts into the custody officer role without them being replaced...

I could go on for ages. It really is that bad ... every day I get a little more pessimistic that it is retrievable ... we will just have to get used to the fact that the police service we used to enjoy and expect has gone forever.

Interesting. Why the fuck does police strategy think in terms of "customers" though? They are public servants, end of.

 

[detective-boy]

Why the fuck does police strategy think in terms of "customers" though? They are public servants, end of.

Because some aspects of the service it provides should be assessed in terms of customer service just like any other business. I'm thinking of waiting times, effectiveness of response, satisfaction with service provided. Why shouldn't they think of the people using the service as "customers"? Why would that be inconsistent with being public servants? I'm not at all sure I understand the distinction you are making.

In fact, I'm not saying the current police strategy does think of them as customers enough - it is simply a "we are a public service" approach which leads a "we know best" attitude because it does not recognise the people it interacts with as customers where it is appropriate.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Has there ever been a case of a white person successfully suing for racial discrimination?

Yep.
There have been several high-profile tribunals in the last 5 years.

I wonder whether these people that make these 'discrimination' claims ever stop to consider perhaps it's nothing to do with their skin colour but just the fact that they might not be good enough for promotion any further?

Well, given that you can't get an employment tribunal taken on unless there's a case to be answered, I'd say that your theory is about as credible as most of what you post, i.e. not very.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Perhaps that's because we don't go running to the press all the time crying 'discrimination' about it. We just sigh, realise there's very little we can do about it, and get on with life.

If only that were true, and people like you weren't such whiny, bitter little children.

Discrimination against white men is not a myth any more - it's going to be made into a legal requirement, if you've been following the news... unless, of course, we manage to get it thrown out.

I'm a white British working-class male, I'm approaching 50, and I've never been discriminated against by anyone, except by those (mostly white British males, oddly enough) who've chosen to take exception to the fact that I wear a magen David.

 

[agricola]

Because some aspects of the service it provides should be assessed in terms of customer service just like any other business. I'm thinking of waiting times, effectiveness of response, satisfaction with service provided. Why shouldn't they think of the people using the service as "customers"? Why would that be inconsistent with being public servants? I'm not at all sure I understand the distinction you are making.

In fact, I'm not saying the current police strategy does think of them as customers enough - it is simply a "we are a public service" approach which leads a "we know best" attitude because it does not recognise the people it interacts with as customers where it is appropriate.

This is something that does - slowly - appear to be changing, at least from the communications side of things. Operators should be managing peoples expectations now, giving them as close as possible to an idea of how long police will take to arrive, and I know that the dispatch parts of Metcall have been phoning back people to tell them appointments wont be met and the reasons why.

There was also a recent push towards supervisors QAing how their units deal with incidents, though I have no idea at how effective this is as I have escaped Borough for a while, or if its still going on.

 

[Gixxer1000]

Because some aspects of the service it provides should be assessed in terms of customer service just like any other business. I'm thinking of waiting times, effectiveness of response, satisfaction with service provided. Why shouldn't they think of the people using the service as "customers"? Why would that be inconsistent with being public servants? I'm not at all sure I understand the distinction you are making.

In fact, I'm not saying the current police strategy does think of them as customers enough - it is simply a "we are a public service" approach which leads a "we know best" attitude because it does not recognise the people it interacts with as customers where it is appropriate.

A good answer, but in my minds eye I see a lot of pen pushers "measuring" and manipulating. I see police officers taking statements just for the sake it, with no intention of following the case up and I see people prevented from reporting certain crimes properly (ever tried to report a stolen phone?- "lost" in the street innit). All so a load of meaningless statistics are generated

 

[detective-boy]

This is something that does - slowly - appear to be changing, at least from the communications side of things.

I hope so ... but there are ongoing problems as I know personally from recent dealings with the Met as a victim and witness ... I have not had a single interaction I would rate better than acceptable out of the last five I have had. Four I would have rated unacceptable, two of them entirely unacceptable. My personal experience is borne out by almost all the information I have on other's experience, obtained through a variety of things I am working on.

 

[detective-boy]

I see police officers taking statements just for the sake it, with no intention of following the case up and I see people prevented from reporting certain crimes properly (ever tried to report a stolen phone?- "lost" in the street innit). All so a load of meaningless statistics are generated

But none of that is at all related to a customer focus - in fact it's the absolute opposite - it's activity being carried out for the benefit of the organisation, not the customer. A customer focus would monitor the experiences of victims of crime and others, to assess whether or not they were content with the outcome and the experience.

As a "for instance" there has undoubtedly been lots of bureaucracy connected with the theft of my motorbike but if I was asked to rate the outcome of my interaction with the police on a scale of 1 - Entirely dissatisfied to 10 - Entirely satisfied it would be mo more than 2. And why? Kept waiting 30 minutes at station office when reporting crime. Officers refused to circulate details of stolen bike to local patrols "because it was stolen more than an hour ago" (much of which was spent waiting ...). A failure to contact witnesses (who I had located) to obtain further information. An attitude of "why are you bothering us" when I rang the Crime Management (Filing, more like) Unit with additional information from witnesses I had obtained myself. A victim letter, full of grammatical errors and incompetent use of mail merge and including several entirely irrelevant paragraphs - clearly a stock letter, no thought involved. Being lied to about liaison between police and local CCTV unit. Being lied to about liaison between police and local council parking wardens. An absolute impression given from start to finish that I was a nuisance and why was I bothering them.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

Has there ever been a case of a white person successfully suing for racial discrimination?

I don't kow does your type of person classify jews as white?

I wonder whether these people that make these 'discrimination' claims ever stop to consider perhaps it's nothing to do with their skin colour but just the fact that they might not be good enough for promotion any further?

i have no doubt that this may have happened in certain cases the point being that they should at no time feel they are in any given situation as a result of their pigmentation rather than their abilites. if the perception is one of it being due to pigmentation then it's a given they will not explore other further possilibites... why would they...

it's a real shame that the current equalites legislation which appears to be undermining the general prinicpal of the concept of equal oppertunities, by using positive discriminiation an orwellian phrasiology if ever there was one...

 

[Aldebaran]

i have no doubt that this may have happened in certain cases the point being that they should at no time feel they are in any given situation as a result of their pigmentation rather than their abilites. if the perception is one of it being due to pigmentation then it's a given they will not explore other further possilibites... why would they...

I always had a distinct advantage over the "pure whites" because of my pigmentation... Especially with "white" women in Western nations.
Is that me passively undergoing "positive discrimination" or are the women discriminating the pure-bred whites... I wouldn't know.

I'm sure "skin colour discrimiantion" happens, but more often than not it is linked to and intertwined with a variety of other factors.
Some people make assumptions about other's background (culture, religion, origin) purely based on their appearance. It is even not limited to that. People make assumptions about others even on message boards like this one.

salaam.

 

[ajdown]

I don't kow does your type of person classify jews as white?

Jews aren't a race, they're a religious group, made up of people of all different races.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

Jews aren't a race, they're a religious group, made up of people of all different races.

so is race only a question of skin colour and not of cultral idenity then love...

better go rewrite all that racail discrimination legislation then so it's only covers skin pigmentation...

like i said i wasn't sure if your type would accept the jews as an example in this case (or let's face it in any case not being so fond of the jews are you... your type never are...)

 

[ajdown]

like i said i wasn't sure if your type would accept the jews as an example in this case (or let's face it in any case not being so fond of the jews are you... your type never are...)

"my type"?

Was the irony intentional or accidental?

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

"my type"?

Was the irony intentional or accidental?

that'd be telling clan you guess???

 

[detective-boy]

so is race only a question of skin colour and not of cultral idenity then love...

better go rewrite all that racail discrimination legislation then so it's only covers skin pigmentation...

Er, race quite specifically does NOT include religion .. which is why they, er, went off and rewrote all the religious hatred legislation to go with the racial hatred stuff ...

Is there no limit to your capacity for authoratively spouting absolute complete and utter bollocks ...