What matters most is how bad cases are handled - transparently, fairly and fast. It matters for the reputation of the police, as well as for the victims. The idea that letting daylight into the police, as Macpherson did, somehow undermines them, lowers their morale or lessens their authority is the exact opposite of the truth. The better they deal with their own miscreants, the more they will be trusted and the more support they will get back from the communities they police. Often complainants just want an explanation and an apology - too rarely given.
Managerial efficiency includes keeping a stern eye on absenteeism.
The Met have cut their sickness rates from an average of 14 days per officer a year in 1996-7 down to only nine days a year last year. That saving is equivalent to an extra 500 officers on the beat. As the election approaches, Labour is worrying about how to get across the fact that crime has fallen, not risen as people always imagine. Hardly surprising since everything they see and read tells them it must be so, local and national press as ever full of crime horrors, Crime Watch pumping it out every week, crime drama making violence seem to lurk everywhere. So far Labour has tried to seize popular support with strings of new laws, more crackdowns, more quick fixes.