Lose a few of your response staff and the nick feels it, lose the SMT for a week's jolly, and nobody notices.

I think a weeks being too generous.A good slice of SMT could take months off and there would barely be a flicker in day to day activity.

The response teams have always been seen as the lowest of the low within the organisation. CID and all the other squads that are formed to tackle whatever is the flavour of day problem issue will always take from the response teams. They are 24/7 and if they get overwhelmed with incidents and having to do deal with the NHS and social services jobs. You do not see the SMT out there at 2am on a Saturday morning giving a hand do you.

A lot of the above just seems a re-churn of other PO articles from NPCC/CoP over the last few years. Has anything really changed? They seemed to have put in place stuff around MH and stress issues with the likes of Oscar Kilo etc.. but isn't this post event stuff? If senior rank did look after the front line then perhaps they wouldn't need to look after so many burnt out staff. As for the comment from CoP for a top down management approach to support officers who make 'courageous decisions in difficult circumstances' It seems to me when the balloon does go up when officers have made 'courageous decisions in difficult circumstances' they are left swinging to be prayed upon by MSM and IOPC.

Response deal with anything and everything and then more from other agencies on top of that. They get treated like garbage, micro managed by SLT and random civilian staff, barely get properly tutored and take the fall for SLT projects when they inevitably fail. If SLT stood up to other public sectors and said, ‘this is your job; social workers and mental health staff are not out at 02:00 policing the NTE, so why are police babysitting patients etc?’ Allow officers to use their discretion (once properly tutored) and stop reduce the number of senior officers who interfere and hinder on a daily basis. As said below, lose response and the public/rest of the police know about it quickly. Lose the politicians with badges, things run more smoothly it seems.

Lots of squads and CID are made of failed response team officers and others that couldn't cut the mustard. Good to see that they are being recognised

Lots of squads and CID are made of failed response team officers and others that couldn't cut the mustard. Good to see that they are being recognised

mere lip service and chest thumping regarding long standing issues - do the front line responders get paid more (i do not mean CID working nights - I mean those that are FIRST LINE RESPONDERS)!

A weeks fake praise and photo opps then next week forgotten again until the focus week next year! What a hollow, empty and patronising spectre!