I am just about to complete my 25th year in the Police and I have never really had any ambition to be promoted.

I have worked on just about every department that I wanted to and so this year I decided to think about promotion. As you may know I have worked on a socially deprived estate that has some inherent problems. I had worked there for some 18 months and when the inspector asked me if I wanted to do acting Sgt I snapped his hand off. I just had to get through the beaurocratic resourcing meeting which I was not allowed to go to and I was home and dry!

The day came and I was told that I had not been selected. Instead an officer with 5 years experience had been selected for "continuity reasons". Now without boring you with all the details this effectively meant that because he had done acting sgt on shift he knew how to allocate and review crimes! So I went about my business taking this on the chin.
Some months later another post came up and again he was selected for the same reasons but this time it was because we had a new inspector. Knowing that he was friendly with the chief inspector and his wife, who happened to work at the same police station, it was obvious that this was a conspiracy!

So I threw my toys out the pram, stuck a grievance in that was destined to be sent to headquarters, and miraculously I was offered acting on another area! Now this came about because the Sgt on that area was not performing, the public were not getting the service they wanted or needed. It was the worst performing sector locally!
I started there on the 1st September and we are now the best performing on the local area, the public confidence has increased and the guys and gals are out and being high profile. So much so that we have displaced the offenders to a position where they get desperate and subsequently caught due to complacency.

As for the other guys who is still acting on the other area, they are 2nd from bottom and crime on the neighbourhood has shot through the roof!