Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Some practical advice please for an ARP4 owner

Impressive thread drift.

It's not just the police. Pay freezes, pension reductions, cost cutting are endemic throughout the public sector.
The Civil Service is shrinking but the Senior Civil Service isn't shrinking proportionately.

In any public service, what matters is how many employees do the core job, and how many do not. This should be in the public domain.

The march towards austerity and cost cutting at the expense of services provided is a real 21st century malaise. I don't see any way out of this race to the bottom.

Happy New Year!

I am becoming concerned by the death by a 1000 cuts.

When I was with Dyfed-Powys a change was introduced.the traffic only dealing with roads issues and the rest dealing with all others, a sort of demarcation line was the norm.
A traffic car could be the nearest unit to, say, a burglary but not sent as they were "traffic".
This changed to get the nearest unit to attend, irrespective of type.
So, a "panda" might be first at scene for an RTC but a traffic car would be allocated to attend. Vice versa for no traffic incidents too.
Cost cutting has led to reducing numbers on premium pay shifts, but high incident days are manned up with restricted leave/days off etc. Black Friday, New Years Eve as examples. Rugby internationals in Cardiff caused reduced leave too, despite the fact it was out of our area! Brilliant logic.
I was in the ops room for 8 years and had 2 Christmas Days off due to certain people demanding the days off. Despite making my views known re sharing it management were weak. Staff levels were always below strength so getting time off was a lottery.
Commissioners? Don't get me going! ACPO...the same.
Non operational departments with rules to suit themselves not needs of the public/staff.
Don't get me wrong, there was great job satisfaction, stressful times, having to unwind from some shifts,black humour, great colleagues. It was nice to retire though.
The police often seemed to be the ones to call for non police issues as Social Services, Dog Wardens, Highways departments, always seemed to have their own agendas and availabilties. Hence, call the police because nobody else is dealing with it. gRRRR
Rant over.

I'm saddened that policing in Wiltshire isn't anything unusual...

Certainly the smaller forces make no sense, from an operational efficiency perspective, but as has been said, getting senior officers to vote in mergers and change can be compared with inviting a turkey to vote for Christmas.

Common sense has been eliminated from management, not just in the public sector but in global industry. I work for a global "thing" in the chemical/pharmaceutical sector. It is obsessed by process, procedure and arse covering. Many of my colleagues would wet themselves if asked to take responsibility for a decision which if it went wrong would cost them their job. But small business owners do exactly that on a regular basis and doing exactly that is why I have a Mog in the garage and can afford to retire.

This is my last year working, not because I want to stop, but because I can no longer deal with all the political and procedural rubbish that surrounds the real job.

Now, back to the subject...please!

So the practical advice for an ARP4 owner is not to work in the public sector

This >>>>> "often they are of the self promoting 'Yes Sir" type that does little good when some common sense and backbone is required at senior level" >>> is the problem in many places.

Where I work there's a standing joke that "Everything is Awesome" is the mantra from the 'dolittles' in charge.

I have fitted a map reading light, that I can have angled to illuminate the dash / switches. I have mounted this in place of one of the vents in the dashboard as these weren't connected to anything on my car.
I looked at some illuminated toggle switches but these didn't seem to help with identifying the right switch when they are off!

Ian,
the dashboard vents should connect to the heater on short door cars (pre late 1997) via flexible hoses.
John

Sorry I wasn't clear, I was referring to the vents on the AR plus 4 not the demisters on earlier cars.

The Dash front heater vents in my ARP4 were superb.
So were the spot lights,retina burners and would have been great search lights in WW11.