THE rank of chief inspector is to be abolished in Wiltshire as part of a review.

Wiltshire Police, faced with significant budget cutbacks, is currently undertaking a review of its organisational hierarchy/rank structure.

The first element of this review is the decision to decommission the chief inspector rank.

Other senior ranks (police officer and police staff) will also be looked at as part of the review.

It hopes the changes will reduce bureaucracy ‘to enable a more empowered workforce, ensuring that officers and staff are freed up to deal with the issues that are most important to communities’.

Wiltshire Police Chief Constable Pat Geenty said: “Our mission is to provide our communities with the best possible service and protect them from harm. To do this we need to be bold, innovative and courageous in the way we approach policing and that really needs to start with the way our organisation is structured.

“It’s important that we are able to react quickly and effectively when the public need us – part of that relates to the technology we use – but a bigger part is around the human side of things.

“I want to create an empowered workforce where our staff feel capable and confident in making decisions that ultimately have the best interests of the public in mind.

“That means flattening our structure, reducing bureaucracy and closing the gap between what is happening on the frontline and what is being said at a leadership level.

“Clearly the removal of any rank structures, whether they are police officer or police staff, requires careful and considered management.

“This is not something that we can achieve overnight nor would we want to.

“It will start with the removal of the chief inspector rank but we will be reviewing other senior police officer and staff ranks and roles, too.

“The force has no immediate plans to use forced exit procedures for the officers involved and we will instead be relying on natural turnover over a longer period of time.”