Cutting the number of superintendents anomalous

The President of the Superintendents’ Association of England and Wales has warned that cutting superintendent ranks will reduce police performance and is anomalous to the increases in federated ranks and numbers of chief officers.

Chief Superintendent Derek Barnett said chief officers who seek to make short-term savings by reducing numbers of superintendent ranks would do so at their peril.

He said superintendents are not deskbound generals, management on costs; they are operational leaders.

As numbers of superintendents have shrunk to the lowest level in recent times, they have taken on much more responsibility while the number of federated ranks – constables to chief inspectors – has increased significantly in the last decade and the numbers of assistant chief constables (ACC) have also grown.

Mr Barnett said in some forces there are now as many ACCs as there are chief superintendents.

“If chief constables are serious about saving money, let me offer a suggestion, as we now have chief superintendents and superintendents performing gold command roles and increasingly taking on the former responsibilities of ACCs, why not apply the same economic principles and have more chief superintendents and fewer ACPO? That would present real savings.”