Surely senior police posts can be filled by officers in the local force

From Dave Le Peurian.

HERE we go again. Two more senior police officers are imported from the UK to fill senior posts here in Jersey and a further senior officer from the UK who was appointed as acting deputy chief officer in 2009 gets his post confirmed as a permanent one.

I see that one of the incoming senior officers is, or was, the divisional commander of Westminster Central with a staff of 560, and now he is heading to Jersey to be one of the most senior officers heading our local force which according to the States of Jersey Police website has around 240 officers.

Now call me cynical if you like, but what is the attraction to such a senior officer basically downsizing his job to be an even bigger fish in a very small pond?

I can’t imagine that it’s for the variety of work he will get to undertake here in Jersey compared with the UK. Murder cases and the like are not the norm here as they are in the UK, so what is the attraction?

My question to the powers that be is simply this: why can’t any of these senior posts ever be filled by members of the local force?

If it’s a matter of sending local officers away to gain whatever qualifications and experience they need in order to be able to fill these senior posts, then why is it not done?

I simply don’t believe that out of about 240 officers there are in the Jersey force there are none who could reach these senior positions. It just seems to me that these senior police posts are only available to an old boys network, with decisions being made about who gets these posts by senior civil servants who no doubt themselves have also been imported from the UK to tell people here that we simply have no one of the calibre required locally to fill the positions. Sorry, but

I do not believe that for one minute.

For example, look at the Graham Power / Lenny Harper fiasco and their handling of the Haut de la Garenne case. This was the then police chief and his next most senior officer, both imported from the UK with all their experience, and look at how they handled that case. If this is how the two most senior officers handled one of the Island’s biggest cases, I don’t see that someone locally who had come up through the ranks would have done any worse.

But then, the way things are they are never going to be given the opportunity to move up to the most senior posts within the force, are they? No, the top posts seem to be for senior UK officers to finish their careers, with huge salaries and gold-plated pensions.

Unless of course someone can tell us something to the contrary.