‘GMP had lost its way’: how a new Chief Constable plans to reawaken the ‘sleeping giant’ of British policing
It has been ten weeks since Greater Manchester’s new chief of police was sworn in to perform an unenviable task.
Stephen Watson’s job is to fix the country’s second biggest police force, one that had been steadily slipping backwards over several years. Its high-profile problems have ranged from deteriorating inspection reports to an exodus of officers, a calamitous computer system, increasingly furious whistleblowing and, ultimately, the letting down of victims, as well as a series of damning criticisms in court. Only last month, it emerged that GMP had given incorrect information to an initial inquiry into the response to the Manchester Arena attack.
At his office in Central Park’s force headquarters, the new Chief reiterates that he does not consider GMP to be ‘failing’. But he says that both inside and outside the force, perceptions have been bad for quite some time, for good reason.
“There’s no doubt that GMP as an organisation is probably externally – but more importantly for the purposes of this analysis, internally – perceived as having lost its way,” he says.
“It was seen as obviously underperforming from an outsider’s perspective. I think I’ve described GMP as a ‘sleeping giant’ and I’ve felt that for some time.
“It’s objectively, empirically, obviously true that GMP is underachieving its latent potential. I don’t think that’s an entirely new phenomenon. I think that’s been about for a while.”
It is now his job to understand exactly why and, swiftly, do something about it.
In mid-September he will publish a full ‘forward plan’ for improvement, but he already at this point has an initial analysis of the problems that have dogged GMP – and what is required.
To begin with the under-recording of crime, the tipping point for GMP at the end of last year, the Chief says performance is now ‘right up with the frontrunners nationwide’, following months of hugely resource-intensive efforts to make sure everything is logged. ( Her Majesty’s Inspectorate had estimated more than 80,000 crimes went unrecorded last year.)
But, that, he says, is only the start of what needs to happen.
“The point of the exercise isn’t to record crimes, but to investigate them,” he says, adding: “My approach is that if there is a viable line of inquiry, then it should be pursued.
“I’m not interested in determining that a particular crime is just not important enough to investigate. Of course, things have to be investigated proportionately – we don’t turn out the entire murder squad for somebody having his fence kicked in.
“But if we’ve got facial imagery and a number plate of somebody who’s driven off a petrol forecourt, we’ve traditionally said ‘actually we’re really busy and that’s not really an important crime, so we won’t investigate’. Well that, to me, is anathema.
“There is somebody who needs bringing to book, because normal people don’t do that.
“The sort of people who do that are called criminals. And we, the police, have this handy power to deal with folks like that. So that implies an awful lot of change.”
It also implies a big increase in arrests. As a national crime prevention lead, Watson stresses he is ‘sophisticated enough’ to understand prevention is better than cure, that problem-solving needs to be used to reduce demand, that people need to be steered away from a life of crime.
“But you’ve got to pay the rent. That means that when people are faithfully reporting the crime to you, you investigate it.
“If there’s a baddie that can be brought to book, then that’s our job. And so, I actually anticipate probably a fourfold increase in the numbers arrested across [Greater] Manchester.
“Because ours would be a much more interventionist, proactive ‘on the front foot’ type approach to tackling criminality.”
This will also mean more police cells, he says.
“We’re going to be arresting people.”
It is certainly a change in tone. Until very recently, the dominant narrative from GMP’s operational and political leadership had been that the loss of police officers since 2010 has made it impossible to investigate what the public had expected of it.
The new Chief insists that simply isn’t the case. “It has a lot of capacity, regardless of what people might say,” he says. “There’s a lot of capacity, a lot of capability.”
GMP could always do more with more, but ‘I do believe that GMP today has enough resources to make an altogether better fist of the demand that we are confronted with – 100% on that’.
What there hasn’t been, he believes, is a wise use of that resource.
One of his first moves has been to roll out a ‘performance management’ framework. GMP simply didn’t have one before, meaning that – unlike a decade or so ago – its leadership did not have a clear picture of what was going well or badly, or where, or why. (“That stuff had withered over time.”)
Secondly, senior police officers will now be moved out of management roles if they do not have the appropriate skills.
“We’ve got a lot of senior cops sitting in post just because they are senior cops, not because they actually know what they’re doing,” he says.
“Senior cops have lots of really good skills, but it might not be strategic workforce planning, for example. So what we are doing is we’re creating headroom for better qualified people.
“And we will, in large measure, through a structured review, be putting a number of senior operational police officers back into frontline leadership roles.”
Alongside that there is a major ongoing recruitment drive for new Chief Superintendents, who will be moved back out of force headquarters – into which they were shifted during the last major restructure, a bone of contention for plenty of officers – and into their local patches.
This will be ‘the single biggest senior recruitment drive that we’ve ever undertaken at GMP’, he says. “And it’ll only happen once, it won’t happen again.”
Then there is the Operational Communications Branch, or OCB – whose tasks include handling calls from the public.
The service is ‘beleaguered’, he admits.
“I’m absolutely not pulling my punches around OCB,” he says. “The service that we give to the public is not adequate.
“People wait far too long to get through on 101 and even triple nines, from time to time, which is really important for us because it’s dangerous. It’s really dangerous…Ironically, and weirdly, GMP has more 999s than 101s. We’re the only place that does – the only place that does.
“That’s because people can’t get through on 101. So what do they do? Well, they ring 999.”
The solution ‘is not tinkering, but a wholesale restructure’, he says, including investment, recruitment and training. It cannot happen overnight. In the meantime there are ‘sticking plasters’ in place, while the public will continue to be urged only to call 999 in an emergency, ‘however frustrated’ they may be.
Overall, the nature of how GMP deals with crime reports in the first instance has been a fundamental part of its problems, he believes.
Everything comes through the ‘front door’ of the communications branch before going straight back out to so-called ‘omnicompetent’ officers, a model introduced in the force several years ago and one that has been defined by its unpopularity among the rank and file. It essentially expects all cops to be able to do everything.
As a result, ‘we’ve got a response officer who might be investigating a burglary for which they’re ill equipped’, he says.
“Or they have 25 crimes to resolve, which is why they’re not resolving, which is why they are cutting corners at the public’s expense, which is why our crime outcomes are poor.”
Officers who are experienced but unable – for health reasons – to serve on the streets will be brought together into desk-based crime investigation teams, to provide an initial ‘filter’ out to the frontline.
The ‘quid pro quo’ for the frontline, he says, will be that if some of the pressure is alleviated, a ‘higher quality of service’ will be expected for victims.
“Actually this runs entirely with the grain, because that’s precisely what our people want to do.
“They find it really stressful at the moment, because they cannot do what they signed up to do, because systemically we’re overloading them.
“So this is not going to be difficult for our people. They’re going to love it, and the public should see a better outcome.”
Still, there is an ‘organisational elephant in the room’, he says. The frontline is still working with one hand tied behind its back thanks to the force’s computer system, iOPS.
The Chief has already promised a review of the part of it that doesn’t work – PoliceWorks – and while he does not yet provide a verdict, he admits that has to be sorted out fast.
“The present position is unsustainable. iOPS does not do what it says on the tin, and that comes at the expense of operational efficiency and effectiveness, and therefore the status quo cannot be sustained.
“Frankly, it won’t be much more than another month or two before we start to get to that place, because what we cannot do is just let this thing run, because whatever the options are – if it’s the remedial ‘we found a way of making it work’ or if it’s ‘we can’t make it work – we need to look at an alternative’, both options take some time. So the bottom line is whatever we’re going to do, we have to make the call quite quickly.”
In the meantime, morale in the force has been, and remains, low, he concedes. Officers feel ‘bruised and battered, wanting to leave’ – and in many cases have done. His solution lies partly in his plans to fix iOPS and take operational pressures off the frontline, but also in his answer to a question from the M.E.N. about culture.
After a slew of brutal headlines in recent years, from 2019’s Grainger inquiry, which called crucial elements of GMP record-keeping ‘little better than a forgery’ and in one instance ‘not a trustworthy source’, to a series of whistleblowers who have raised the alarm, including about Child Sexual Exploitation and internal misconduct investigations, to the repeated denials that iOPS was indeed a major problem, to the eventual claims of ‘defensiveness’ from Andy Burnham, directed at the force’s previous leadership, how do you change this force’s culture?
Watson says it is a ‘stretch’ to suggest such incidents reflect an ‘ingrained culture’ across the entire force. But he says it is essential that officers recognise an ‘organisational justice’ within GMP.
The answer comes in values and leadership demonstrated ‘right from the top’, he says.
“It is almost motherhood and apple pie, this, isn’t it?
“But actually, if leaders don’t model the values and model the standards personally, it doesn’t end well.
“I’m making no judgement on those who’ve gone before. But all I would say is that the GMP that I lead, and the leaders that I lead, if they don’t model the values, then they will not flourish in this organisation.
“Because if we cannot be equal to what it is we’re asking of our people, then we’ve no business being here.”
Too often, he says, frontline officers have also felt afraid to admit when they have made a mistake.
“Sometimes, if people are worried to death and not being supported, in order to get themselves out of a minor pickle, they start telling lies.
“If they’ve told lies, they are in a big problem, because my stance is a simple one. And that is: if you’ve dropped the ball but you’ve dropped the ball in good faith, even though you shouldn’t have done and you’ve been trained not to and all those good things…but if you’re honest about it, and you’re just a human being? You’re probably going to live to fight another day.
“But if you’re going to tell lies, you’re out, because I have nowhere to go with people who tell lies because trust and honesty are not malleable in our world. They are brittle constructs – they either exist or they’re broken. And if they’re broken, you can’t perform your role. You’re out.”
At the same time, he says, he will defend his officers to the hilt from unfair criticism.
“If it’s not defendable, we don’t defend it. We put our hands up and said do you know what? We messed that up. We’re terribly sorry. We’ll try not to do it again.
“And what happens in those scenarios is the public go, ‘well, thankyou very much, hopefully it won’t happen again, it shouldn’t have happened the first time’.
“But they don’t see us to be tricky. They don’t see us to be lacking in integrity. And that’s really important.”
Watson is less than three months into the job and at the time of writing, officers remain under immense pressure thanks to the increased expectations around crime recording, major restructuring being as-yet in its early days, huge numbers of staff self-isolating and the crippling drag that is iOPS.
But he remains confident. He admits officers are yet to see the delivery, but he believes some of his initial steps – including around changes to senior leadership – have been enough, symbolically, for there to be ‘some lights coming back behind people’s eyes, I think’.
“Can I see a future in the not too distant future where GMP can confidently navigate itself out of special measures? Absolutely. Absolutely.”
There will be no more inspection reports that end with ‘and you’re going backwards’, he insists. January’s PwC report commissioned by the mayor will finally be published in September; so will the Chief’s forward plan; and the policing inspectorate will revisit the same month.
“I guarantee that what they will find is solid leadership, a good plan being faithfully executed, ‘those bits that they’ve said they’ve done are embedded’ and the bits to come make sense.
“So, let’s watch this space. That’s what will come and I’m happy with that. A couple of years, until we can be officially good, across the board – which is what we will achieve. We better had.”
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