A matter of conduct - 14 July 2010

The Police service is still a disciplined organisation and has a conduct code towards which all officers endeavour to adhere, even when off duty. Yes, every bobby has to watch his Ps and Qs when in B&Q and take care at all times irrespective of where he or she is.

The conduct code covers many aspects of behaviour such as insubordination, incivility, malingering and so on but the "catch all" section is the one that takes to do with conduct likely to bring discredit on the police force.

Throughout the 30, or now 35, years of service every officer will be made well aware of what constitutes discredit from the very start at Tulliallan to pre retirement courses advice and guidance are given about such things as the "throw away remark" or the "peculiar" look.

It appears, somewhat understandably, that the general public do not enjoy the wit and humour of an officer at certain times, such as when being charged, arrested or detained and will go to great length to advise said officers supervisors of their humour bypass.

It has also been known for officers to fall foul of the conduct code for something as simple as smiling. It will be suggested that the officer was taking some form of perverse pleasure in administering justice or whatever and at time you might think people would prefer to be dealt with by an automaton. Of course the other side of the coin is the complaint of being too formal -  "the officer was stern and miserable when charging me, no banter, no smile, nothing."

In simple terms the officer is on a lose, lose situation, they are damned if they are happy and damned if they are formal. With some people it matters not a jot how you act they will find fault somewhere, somehow.

On occasions of extreme pressure, the heat of the moment, some officers will have advised people to go away and whether directly or euphemistically and it will have resulted in a formal complaint.

These matters, no matter how petty they sound, or actually are, are dealt with by senior officers who have the benefit of experience, wisdom, rank, training and a goodly distance from the front line. They should deal with these complaints in a professional and proper manner - after all there is no way that any of them would do something wrong or less than proper, such as smiling and laughing during a very important and extremely serious media briefing.

I sincerely hope that common sense prevails when conduct complaints of this nature are dealt with.  A degree of latitude should be afforded the offending officer.

The Station Blog is written by neither a Federation Representative nor an employee.  The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Joint Central Committee of the Scottish Police Federation.