Spectator readers respond to recent articles
Target practice
Sir: It is simply wrong to say — as an anonymous officer claimed in your magazine (‘Target Men’, 28 May) — that every facet of the Metropolitan Police is now dominated or disfigured by targets or quotas. However, if we are to be truly accountable, there must be some performance measures. How else can we reassure the communities of London that they are getting value for money?
We aim to increase public satisfaction and confidence — and we conduct surveys to ensure we deliver on this commitment. Is that an unnecessary target? How else can we know if we are getting things right?
The people of London have a right to know how we are performing. All major police forces in the world are held accountable for cutting crime. If we scrapped crime figures, we’d be castigated for preventing the public from knowing how we are performing.
The author — a ‘long-serving’ officer — apparently witnesses inappropriate behaviour but appears to have done nothing to address it. Good front-line supervisors have no time for malpractice. It is all too easy to hide behind anonymity when passing criticism, and I would welcome any officer who has constructive, informed feedback to work with us to help improve our services.
The Met I see on a daily basis may not be perfect but is not consumed by slavishly following target regimes. I’m proud to say that the vast majority of officers remain committed to keeping London safe and to policing with integrity.
Steve Kavanagh
Deputy Assistant Commissioner
Metropolitan Police Service
Sir: I was a policeman in the 1950s and 1960s when performance targets were very few indeed and police officers shared the streets with their public, as they had done for over a century.
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