Doing the Business

I am not a business person but I understand that large corporations like to keep tabs on their more expensive operations by means of cost benefit analysis beforehand and audits afterwards.They expect the CEO to come and explain in detail what has been accomplished and at what cost.The drawbacks and methods of improving performances in the future -financial gains and losses being uppermost in mind-before the BOARD has to report to the shareholders at the AGM .
Public bodies have similar systems of accountability - but what of the Police ? It used to be the case that the Chief Constable reported back to the Police Authority.Now that these have been scrapped a link with the general public has been severed.The plans to evict residents of Dale Farm were well under way in December 2010 see setting the Scene,elsewhere on this blog.
The information document published by Essex Police might be thought of as a preliminary report but even as such it is woefully inadequate.It would make most business people squirm with embarrassment because it does not explain what happened.
In an addition which was put out later and withdrawn from Utube it revealed that the police had entered the site at dawn.This was being economical with the truth as it did not say in what manner this was done (a raid by over 300 riot police).As you appreciate assistance given by other police forces has to be paid for  so a kind of chart is included to show how much involvement each county force played on and off during the preparations. (A list of injuries sustained and arrests made is a welcome feature)after that there are just a few minor talking points,for example comment upon messages received from the public which were 41 in favour and slightly less expressing concern.
Expressing concern in the police vocabulary is different from making a complaint.A complaint is a very special sort of thing and only two types are recognized.On this occasion there was one of each type and so there  were in total only two complaints registered against Essex Police.
Beyond this trivia there are lacunae aplenty:
Nothing about who was in charge,nothing about the chain of command,nothing about who made the decision to abandon the long standing tradition of being neutral in civil cases,nothing about arming some few officers with tazers,nothing about misuse of Tazers (on various videos officers can be seen waving these potentially lethal weapons in a threatening manner.
In many another operation one gets a warm commendation from a senior officer to say how well his men have performed the tasks given them but here - as at the eviction itself -senior officers are notable by their absence perhaps because it would not do to be photographed conducting an eviction whilst at the same time on their website saying that they do not perform evictions.
New York Times Headline................POLICE EVICT TRAVELLERS.