Police force consider ‘zero-hours’ detectives after surge in murder investigations

Twm Owen, Local Democracy Reporter

A police force is considering hiring detectives on “zero-hours” style contracts after an unprecedented surge in murder investigations put pressure on its officers and overtime budget.

Gwent Police has launched 11 murder investigations in 10 months, compared with the two or three it would normally handle in a year, chief constable Mark Hobrough told councillors.

The demand has led to record overtime spending and neighbourhood officers being diverted from community duties to support major investigations.

Mr Hobrough said the force was exploring flexible arrangements for specialist investigative work if demand continued next year, with the aim of reducing costs and preventing staff burnout.

Addressing Monmouthshire County Council’s public services scrutiny committee, he said other Welsh chief constables had contacted him about the pressures facing the force.

“We’ve had to spend a lot on overtime. It’s an unprecedented amount and unplanned and we’ve got to look after the wellbeing of 1,535 police officers, we’re not a big force,” he said.

Mr Hobrough said an assistant chief constable was examining options for additional support.

“We’re looking at alternatives and I’ve got an assistant chief constable looking at an almost zero hours type situation to conduct interviews or specialist investigations outside of Gwent Police’s natural boundaries as a cheaper option but that has to be of the same quality.”

He stressed that the arrangements had not been finalised.

The chief constable said there was no connection between the cases, with investigations involving different circumstances, weapons and methods.

“Those range from organised crime, mental health, substance misuse and domestic violence and there have been different modus operandi and weapons. There is no correlation between them at all.”

Two of the murder investigations concerned deaths in Monmouthshire.

An investigation into a death in Pontypool in August, linked to suspected biker gang violence, had generated 60% more entries on the Holmes database than any previous Gwent incident, he said. The database is used for serious and complex crime investigations.

Police had made 45 arrests and had to protect 55 scenes linked to the Pontypool investigation.

Mr Hobrough said the workload extended beyond major investigation teams and CID, with neighbourhood officers protecting scenes while response officers continued dealing with everyday calls.

The force has also provided officers for national public order and protest deployments.

Other demands included an incident in Newport in July, when officers shot a man carrying a crossbow whom Mr Hobrough described as a “dangerous individual”, and supporting firefighters tackling wildfires.

The chief constable said the force had sought to minimise the use of neighbourhood officers for other duties.

Although some had been diverted during the first half of the year, he said this remained at an “incredibly low” level.

“It’s absolutely what we don’t want. Historically it used to be the go to for community officers to staff response cars in a shortage, that isn’t the case now.”

Diversion

He said the diversion of neighbourhood officers was monitored by the inspectorate and discussed frequently within the force.

“It’s something we talk about on an almost daily basis and needs to be to an absolute minimum and is not a go to position.”

The pressures had also increased the time taken to answer non-emergency 101 calls.

“Because of those other demands 101 responses have slowed by 15 seconds,” Mr Hobrough said.

The latest figures showed calls were answered in two minutes and 23 seconds. He said he wanted “to correct the myth callers are waiting for 15 minutes”, although he acknowledged “that was the case two and a half years ago”.

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