Police Observer

[onwardsandupwards]

'Ello, 'ello, 'ello...
(sorry, couldn't resist it!)

What's the route to an observer's job with the Police? Do you have to be in the force already or can you apply from civvy street?

Thanks

[tangovictor]

when I was in the force all "observers" hardly the correct word, as its very hard work, were Police Officers

[PANews]

Occasionally there are adverts asking for civvie observers but you could starve out there waiting for them.

I cannot recall one in the last five years.

[handysnaks]

Most Air Units have Police Officers as observers. Some of those that have civilians as observers have recruited them from within their existing police staff.

[DBChopper]

All the Met's observers are police officers. Officially, you need a minimum of two years' service before you can specialise. In practice, you'll need a whole lot more... Bottom line is, you'll need to want to be a copper a lot more than you want to be an air observer as there aren't many slots and they don't come up very often.

[morris1]

There only 1 or two forces in the UK that employ civlilian Air Observers. 1 of the South East Units comes to mind. They have aprox 3 out of 9 as civvies. They are never flown alone, ie without a cop on board too.

The situation may change over time, as civilianisation creeps further and further into the Police Service. Civilian Observers across the board may prove impossible to resist.

In the meantime, the job is dominated by (experienced) serving Officers. IF you want to join the cops, better be prepared to do Police work..!!

[Helinut]

No need to be shy. I am aware that the following Units have "civvy" observers: Suffolk, Hampshire (Plank), plus any like Sussex that have a combined police/HEMS role - One of the observers is then a paramedic. Incidentally, what a sensible use of the taxpayer's expensive assets they are, but I digress.
The previous responses were right about how things are. There is a general political move to review any roles carried out by police officers that don't involve arresting people, wearing a uniform in public. It gets labelled all sorts of things but often BEST VALUE. It is borne on a number of arguably false assumptions that police officers are expensive and "civvys" are cheap.
A number of existing Units will probably recruit civvy observers over the next few years. However, because being a police observer is regarded as a good job, various vested interests will try and keep it in house. Expect PCs to hang on to most of the jobs, followed by current civvy staff working for police forces - I even heard that PCSOs were being considered :mad: :ugh:

I often smile about the artficial divisions between them and us. Do remember we were all civvys once, and we will all become civvys again, unless we die in harness.

[Droopy]

Could be expensive....most units' police observers have the discretion to turn down tasking requests on the grounds of being inappropriate use of the resource; we turn down about 75% of requests that come in because there simply isn't an air support angle to the task and I doubt we're exceptional.

If you remove that discretion and offer what is essentially an airborne CCTV service - phone rings so off we go - then the budget would be out of control in a few months. True, the camera/radio operators might be a little more technically skilled but that's not really the point - it's about appropriate use of the resource.

[tigerfish]

I can't actually see the point of civilianising the position of Police Air Observer. Surely the point of civilianisation of any post is to save money & release officers back to front line positions. But by the time you look at the role & responsibility of the air observer and then allocate the task to the relavent pay scale, add weekend working and shift allowances, I doubt that you will have gained much. Then look at what you lose.
(1) Flexibility, If the machine is down for any reason you can temporarily post your officer to regular duties. You can't the civvy, they are on a contract & job description.
(2) Police Observers do arrest people! The aircraft is often first on scene & whilst it is not the ideal solution it sometimes does have to land and effect an arrest. ( Yes I know civvi's can be specials but it is not the same ).
(3) In public order situations it is not unusual for the local "Bronze" commander to hand effective control over to the aircraft ( Not so common now that downlink coverage is spreading). But will they have the same trust in the none Police observer, I doubt it!

So in short yes a Civvi can do the job, - a teeny bit cheaper, but given the cost of air support as a whole, and the loss of flexibility that might result, is it wise?

[tigerfish]

I can't actually see the point of civilianising the position of Police Air Observer. Surely the point of civilianisation of any post is to save money & release officers back to front line positions. But by the time you look at the role & responsibility of the air observer and then allocate the task to the relavent pay scale, add weekend working and shift allowances, I doubt that you will have gained much. Then look at what you lose.
(1) Flexibility! If the machine is down for any reason you can temporarily post your officer to regular duties. You can't the civvy, they are on a contract & job description.
(2) Police Observers do arrest people! The aircraft is often first on scene & whilst it is not the ideal solution it sometimes does have to land and effect an arrest. ( Yes I know civvi's can be specials but it is not the same ).
(3) In public order situations it is not unusual for the local "Bronze" commander to hand effective control over to the aircraft ( Not so common now that downlink coverage is spreading). But will they have the same trust in the none Police observer, I doubt it!

So in short yes a Civvi can do the job, - a teeny bit cheaper, but given the cost of air support as a whole, and the loss of flexibility that might result, is it wise?

[onwardsandupwards]

Thanks for the replies all, some food for thought

:ok:

[2bart]

Are the Paramedics in Sussex actually PAOC observers?

[Trolleys]

Not all Met observers are Police Officers. As I understand, one of them is an Ops controller who has done the observer's course in-house. Despite being extremely competent, said observer is restricted to front seat duties only, not because of any lack of ability, but so as to protect police observer posts. Wouldn't want to let the cat out of the bag that 'civvies' given the right training and sourced from an appropriate background can be every bit as effective as a police officer.;)

[Bolk]

2bart
I believe that HEMS Para's on joint Police / HEMS do a bit of training in use of the police kit and the police observerver does a bit of training on assisting the para.
Plod in charge when chasing stolen astra's, Bandage-man in charge when someone bleeding all over the floor.

[tangovictor]

in reply to trolley, having been a "civvie" and then a police officer, whilst i agree, there are certain posts that can be, civilanised, with training, what most civvies I encountered, don't have is the " policemans nose " call it instinct if you wish, When you have chased villans on foot or vehicle, you get to know, where there going to run or try and hide, what they probably will do next. If you havn't done it, how could you possibly know ?

[PANews]

This is a very old bone of contention and I doubt there is a resolution [even on Pprune]. The danger here is overall erosion of the police service efficiency.

There are some [particularly American police] who believe that a 'civvie' cannot do any police job in the air. Almost as if we were born to be police officers rather than trained and kicked into shape.

It may be rubbish to think that way, we were all born civvies ... but it is debatable whether many police officers really do revert to that state after 30 years of service.... and you can create an efficient observer quite easily even if they might be short of that certain something. The end product can be good subject to such as those 'ifs' pointed out by Tigerfish but there maybe a wider non-aerospace issue here.

For some years there has been a move to civilianise everything in the police service because it is allegedly cheaper. You can probably cut a third off the wage costs on a one-to-one civilianisation. But it does not actually work that way.

Time and time again over the last 30 years there have been instances of getting rid of the Admin sergeant or another police post and civilianising the office... but what happens... within months the replacement cannot cope and 'they' need more office space because there are three of them!

The same with the new semi-civilian CPSO's [the cheap undertrained and poorly resourced replacement police persons] ... they wander around in pairs... if not threes for mutual support .... that is not economical or efficient when compared with their predessors who did the same job solo.

My point is that this theme reads across the whole service and erodes efficiency [and sounds the death knell of the police service as we know it?]. Although they may not be as flexible as they used to be [potentially because the easier pressures upon the civvie staff as a whole read across] real police officers can still contribute greatly to the the requirement for air units to remain 'lean and mean' where [perhaps!] the easier requirements related to some civilian staff tend not to.

[Helinut]

As everyone will agree, this one will run and run. Let me just re-emphasise a couple of things:

The civvy thing is all about saving money. Let us assume that a civvy on special shft allowance and danger pay and responsbility alloowance and ... costs less to employ than a PC plod [there really is very little difference when you add all these thinsg up]. As others have said, a PC has experience that will from time to time make a difference in how he does a job,when comared with a civvy. Operating an ASU is expensive not because of PC salaries (or even those of the pilots) but because of the cost of running a twin engine all singing dancing money shredding machine. If you want to put your experienced PCs anywhere, better to influence the use of such a multi-million pound piece of kit than operate a computer entering data, issue forms every time they talk to a mmeber of the public, ride a bicycle or even handle a police dog. Not having police officer knowledge and thought processes controlling a police heli can waste a fortune.

The other thing that always seems important to me, is that the aircraft has to work with and to some extent control or influence their police colleagues on the ground. This will be a lot more difficult if "they down there" think that "them up there" aren't even PCs and therefore don't know what they are doing. It is essential that police officers on the ground consider those in the air to be part of the same team. If not, the hele is a waste of money.

[Bearintheair]

The paramedics in Sussex support the police officer when on police tasking acting as the second observer. To that end they are trained to use all the role equipment to the same level as the police observer.

[mlc]

Police Helicopter normally unavailable due to white cloud in the sky or the wrong type of leaves on the trees!! :E:ok:

[zorab64]

Personally I like to feel that I have Observers capable of operating the, increasingly technical, equipment in the most effective manner. It doesn't matter whether they be Police or Civvie, just that they use logical search processes, and the most appropriate tool for the job, to find the suspect and communicate accurately, briefly & concisely, both within & without the aircraft. This does NOT necessarily mean they have to be Police Officers , that bit's just protectionism, as is the arrest argument.
I don't think anyone is suggesting complete civilianisation of the Obs job, but a smattering in a Unit can help to keep people on their toes, especially if they have any pride in their job!
As to cost - I doubt there's much in it, but I'd rather have a Civvie concentrating on doing a good job than a Police Obs who can't understand the technology & feels he has no need to improve his knowledge.;)

[Mikeoscar94]

How would they go about doing this?

Kind regards,

Mike

[timex]

Hi, first option is to join the Police and then attempt to get onto Air support (Big demand for that job). The second option would be to apply for civilian observer when (if) you see one advertised. Things are changing in the Police aviation world so you never know.

[Gazzer1uk]

Personally I would forget it for a bit. Most if not all forces are not recruiting. When they do start recruiting, it seems that you will need to join up as a special constable first, this being a new way to cut corners on costs and training, though in fairness it is not a bad thing to do. You will then have 2 years probationary and then can look to specialize in disciplines. The competition will be immense, it is a good job in the force, plenty of prestige yet not that many places, and some forces still share the chopper, so even less chance.

Why is it particularly that you want to do this?

Gaz

[Art of flight]

Mike, I see from your other posts you're very interested in a flying career of some sort. Police Air Observer is very definately a policing job done from the air (by both police officers and some civilian observers). I point this out as you would have another few years before you could apply to join the police due to your age, and gaining entry is becoming very difficult as most forces have a recruiting freeze due to the economy. The civilian route is even harder as there are fewer positions and police civilian staff are being made redundant in their thousands. Those that are civilian observers have to my knowledge some years of experience in other roles within the police structure before applying for observer training.

In summary it's a tiny 'industry' (33 aircraft, 350 observers, 120 pilots) with its own culture, rewards and hardships and it's getting smaller (23 aircraft by 2015). Your age would preclude you being involved until at least 2015 and who knows what will be the status of air observer recruiting at that time. Good luck

[Aerodynamik]

Trolley, I'm afraid you're about 5 years out of date. The Met did conduct a trial for about a year using one of the civilian ops controllers as a front observer (camera operator) but for a number of reasons the trial was never extended.

[Senior Pilot]

Trolley, I'm afraid you're about 5 years out of date.

Since Trolley posted in July 2006, five years ago, that may explain it?

;)

[J.A.F.O.]

In later years there was a tendency to experiment with civilian Police Air observers but forces still wanted to play safe and tended to look for ex military crewmen or others used to working around aircraft.
The problem was that they very often lacked the "Nose" of an experienced Police officer.

Any chance that you might offer some evidence for your statement? Is this an assumption; received "wisdom"; or based on some experience and knowledge of working alongside non-officer observers?

[tigerfish]

JAFO,

In my case, No hard evidence, just a history of working with the issue since 1984. Time & time again, Ive seen Police observers sticking with a search, or searching a particular area for no obvious reason except their police experience and "nose" told them to.Very often a well hidden prisoner has resulted.

Neither have I ever been convinced that it is a good idea to spend shed loads of money on any piece of kit and then not get the best bang for the buck out of it. And for me the key to all of that is in having the best and most proffesional pilot you can find, and the best and most experienced thief takers you can have as observers.

The accountant, bless their hearts, seem to think that money can be saved by using civvi observers. But can it? Lets look at it.

Firstly by the time you have set the pay scale point, having regard for all the skills required, flying pay etc etc, then added shift allowance and weekend enhanced pay etc you are rapidly approaching the sort of money you would be paying the Police officer.

Now lets look at the negatives. Aircraft can and do go wrong, weather can on occasions become unflyable, for periods of more than one day. A number of other issues can, and from time to time will, ground the unit. With the police observers you can re-deploy them to ground based units for ordinary patrol duties ( There is a school of thought that says that you should do this anyway from time to time to keep them aware of real policing ) BUT you cannot re-deploy a civvi observer. He or she will have a contract and that is that. They have little flexibility in their use.

As I said you just spent a fortune on the aircraft, you MUST now get the best out of it. Its a POLICE aircraft, required to do a POLICE job. The Pilot (in the UK anyway) will by necessity be a civilian. I suggest the observers making the POLICE operational decisions need to be police officers too!

Several forces have tried using civilian observers, but none have found the arguement so cost effective that they have shouted it from the rooftops.

And despite what others, NPAS and politicians, will tell you UK Police air support has never operated in Silo's. The co-operation and communication between Air Support units has always been a lesson to other disciplines within the Police service on how to do it.. When something goes really right or really wrong in one unit, the others hear about it very quickly. Sometimes within minutes!;)

tigerfish

[Digital flight deck]

Tiger, may I ask how many units with civilians as observers you have worked on, or indeed maybe you still do, I am interested in the conclusions you have come to. I would have thought that contracts and terms and conditions could be written in such a way as to have a flexible work force. And is the aircraft not a command and control asset and video evidence gatherer as opposed to a tool for criminal investigations. Just a thought.

[J.A.F.O.]

Tigerfish - I know that you have a great deal of experience and your posts are often enlightening and thought provoking but, in this case, you sum it all up for yourself in your first six words "In my case, No hard evidence" and then you follow with assumptions.

I'm not saying that civilianisation is the way ahead or anything of that nature; I'm just interested by the fact that all of the supposed expertise in just how good civilians are in the role seems to come from people who have no experience of it.

As for "nose"; please, do get real, it is not some spidey sense handed out by dame fortune to the lucky few. It is actually just what you alluded to, police experience, and you don't need to have any particular form of employment contract or hold a particular office in order to accumulate that.

Civilianisation, over the life of one observer, probably saves some money but not necessarily enough to make it particularly attractive and police experience is a vital asset in the aircraft, absolutely no doubt about that but let's not muddy the argument by talking about a lack of flexibility which no-one has any evidence of or talk of some mythical "copper's nose" which is little more than experience and a reasonable level of general intelligence.

[Gazzer1uk]

Regardless of potential, being a police officer and getting experience on the ground about behaviours of people is invaluable. It is not policemens nose, its policemens senses, weighing up circumstances, anticipating etc.

I have no doubt a civilian could be trained up to and be a good observer, but it would take time to gain the experience the plod already has, so in the value for money stakes, quicker return on investment, your average plod would have some advantage in the short and medium term.

If you think of the control room where many civilians do expert work, it is proof that potential of either plod or civvy is there for the taking, but what is true is a new civvy is not as "considered" as a plod taking the role, he only has to learn the kit and computers, the "behaviours" needs of others etc has already been learned and the fledgling civvy will get a hard learning curve from bobby on the beat, I can tell you that with conviction!

However, back to the thread, I had not realised the numbers of aircraft were actually as low as they are that but it does not surprise me and that they are getting lower makes it a pretty narrow career path, secondary to the prime role I guess.

And for the record, yes its good when you get it (wind, rain, sunlight, fuel, scary dark patches, slight cloud, full moon often avoiding attendance when asked!! :-)), but speaking as one directed into a pile of horse crap whilst searching one night, the dog is cheaper but not as fast in a pursuit!!!

Gaz

[sss]

Several forces have tried using civilian observers, but none have found the argument so cost effective that they have shouted it from the rooftops.

Civvy observers can do the job and they can do it just as well as PC's. Provided you recruit the right minded people and train them properly. They can learn 'the nose' as others describe it. They can also learn to be 'bossy' and take control of those on the ground and in the control rooms.

For me the issues are more about cost & control. For costs I can not recall how much civvy observers were getting paid and ancillary costs such as expenses and pensions. So will not comment on that part.

But with a PC you have more control over them. If you compare police regs with those of civil staff, you can get more use out of the PC. It is far easier to redeploy a PC or if they become 'lazy/incompetent/unable''. The threat of getting their beat duty helmet permanently reissued back to them can focus some minds back on the job. It is far easier to cancel leave, rest days and enforce overtime on PC's than civil staff.

There are also the few occasions when you get down and hands on. This is down to warranted officers and is a handy tool in the armory if needed. Although in the past there has been various musings about making them specials or pcso's.

Of course last of all, PC's can not strike unlike civil staff. Most I have come across probably would not. However if they were in the majority and more militant peer pressure. Then it may be a different story.

[tigerfish]

DFD,JAFO,Gazzer & SSS.

Wow that really did spark some life into it! In answer to the first question NO! I have not served on a unit that employed support staff in an observer role, but since retiring from the service in 1999, I did visit a number that did. I retain my assertion that there are no clear financial or operational reasons to do so.

As I said the Police Air Observer is a vital member of the team that delivers Police Air support to the force and to the public at large. I would suggest that one vital aspect of that role (If you will forgive the pun) is to keep their feet on the ground. To remember that their first and last duty is to discharge their role as a police officer, - that is why they are there!

Yes I know, there are other duties, gathering evidence, photography crime prevention, radio communication etc etc. all of which are adequately performed today by support staff ( Civilians ). But how many of them do ALL of those roles, often constantly required to swap between many of them all in one mission?

The Police Officer is different too in one other important aspect from the civilian. As has already been said, if they have lost the edge, or become stale, it is very easy to post them back to ordinary duty quite quickly, in order to regain their streetwise experience before hopefully coming back. Indeed some units due that routinely to preserve the keen edge.

Yes I focussed on "Thief taking" and I do appreciate that there is more to it than that. But remember Guys you are welcomed and appreciated by the general public not because you are good at taking pictures or gathering photographic evidence, but because they belive you are good at catching criminals or detering them from committing crime. In short you make them feel safe.

Sorry about the "Nose" comment too, but real cops will understand.

It all over for me now. I accept that,I am now 66 but age will never stop me from saying what I believe in, or what once made us the best. Days sadly Gone!:ugh:

tigerfish

[tigerfish]

This log suddenly died!

Are all the observers and pilots so worried about their future, now that NPAS is in command?

I guess that once upon a time I might have been too, but now I just hate any shade of political correctness. - It has the potential to bring a great country/service down!

tigerfish

[Art of flight]

TF

Did you mean to post this on the 'other' thread?

[tigerfish]

AoF, No not really. Just aimed at crew, and mainly observers.

tigerfish

[J.A.F.O.]

Perhaps this topic has just been talked to death and just doesn't matter that much - coppers are out there doing good jobs, civvies are out there doing good jobs. Us bumping our gums about it doesn't change that and those who think that civvies could never do the job won't change their minds due to the introduction of subversive tactics like facts and evidence, so why bother?

It's only a debate if there's a chance of altering perceptions, if it's just a case of two diametrically opposed beliefs shouting at each other it's all rather pointless.

[tigerfish]

Yup! I agree.
tigerfish

[pitofrost]

When I was in that world I met a captain from the French Gendarmerie formations aerial (I still have the key ring) at a conference they hosted. They take cops onto the unit as an observer and also some maintenance (up to being able to do 50 hour checks?).

After about 18 months of that they get sent on a flying course. How cool is that? They normally fly in pairs with one as pilot and one operating the role equipment.

And before the guy I met went on the air wing he had a six-month tour guarding the bases on Tahiti. I knew I should have paid more attention in French lessons at school...

[Art of flight]

The americans do something similar..........the problem is it costs and has the chance of a failure rate during training, why adopt such a system in the UK when there's a 'free' source of experienced pilots from the military who require no training at all?

[J.A.F.O.]

...except in brew making.

[Digital flight deck]

I resemble that remark JAFO