Cambridgeshire Constabulary
Ethics Playing Cards
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Q
How do you deal with a tasking that you do not feel professionally qualified to handle?
Case Studies
- Your team is short-staffed. You have not been on the training course yet, but there is no one else available to respond to the call out. What do you do?
- Although the police have been called out, the problem can only be resolved by another agency. What do you do?
- If you have a call out and there is a mechanical failure in your vehicle preventing you from responding, whose responsibility is it?
Discussion
There may be many situations that are novel or you simply have not come across yet. That does not mean that you are not qualified to deal with it. Sometimes, the requirements may seem onerous, but are actually just the application of common sense - for example, all police officers are asked to 'task' a vehicle before use. This does not require any specialist skill other than checking stuff any competent and considerate vehicle owner/user would do before taking a car onto the road.
- Whilst overconfidence should always be guarded against, it is important to remember your training and skills - just because a situation may appear novel, that does not necessarily mean that you are ill-equipped to deal with it.
- There are also some specialist taskings that really do require you to have a specific professional competency or qualification.
- If you are attending and do not feel adequately equipped, is there help or guidance that you can get en route?
- As a leader, how do you manage the balance between empowering your subordinates and encouraging them to get out of their comfort zones, versus placing them in a position for which they are too inexperienced or lack the essential skills to complete the task safely or responsibly?
- If you cannot attend, have you made Control aware that you are not going to be able to attend the call?
- What training/CPD opportunities are available?
- How do you go about requesting additional skills/training/CPD? This can obviously address the perception of a skills gap after the fact, but it does not change the situation today.
- Ultimately, there is a risk in doing anything and everything, and while one can mitigate some or even many risks, one has to do the best one can with the skills and staff available.
Police are often faced with situations in which they appear to have accountability for something that they do not actually have the power/ability/tools or opportunity to change – the situation is outside of their ability to shape positively but if it goes wrong, they will be the one who carries the can. A good starting point is the Risk Principles which talks about mitigating risks and doing the best you can with the skills and staff that you have.