Garda still a force to be reckoned with

The corporate world is full of gobbledygook — but a few useful phrases emerge from the swamp of verbiage. One goes like this: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”.

The phrase, coined by management guru Peter Dunker, apparently means that “a powerful and empowering culture is a surer route to organisational success,” according to the UK-based Management Centre. Or, to put it more plainly, attempting to affect change without addressing culture is probably doomed.

One individual who has, in all likelihood, come to realise this truth is Garda commissioner Drew Harris. Some had predicted that Mr Harris would be eaten for breakfast in his new role, consumed by sharks intent on maintaining the status quo.

Since taking up office last September, he has been busy attempting to reform An Garda Síochána following a protracted period of scandals and morale-sapping episodes.

In the last few weeks, the former PSNI officer got to view a shedload of cultural problems. The latest report from the Policing Authority on the change agenda was less than encouraging.

Some positives were highlighted in the report.

Pockets of the Garda Síochána have demonstrated a real appetite for change with significant levels of personal commitment and drive to achieve some of the recommendations evident.

Among the negative observations was the following: “There is still no settled view articulated as to what the expanded Garda Síochána workforce will look like, how it will be recruited, trained organised and how best it can be effective for the community.”

According to the reform plan, the “expanded workforce” is due to comprise, of 21,000 staff by 2021. This is to include 15,000 guards, 4,000 civilians and 2,000 reserves. Currently, there are around 2,500 civilian staff.

In effect, more than a quarter of the organisation will be non-guards within two years. There are signs that this huge shift is causing some grief for garda members. Ahead of this week’s conference of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI), the group’s general secretary John Jacob alluded to this.

He told reporters that the AGSI supports the civilianisation of the force but that “at no point” has there been an assessment of the roles civilians would perform: “Our experience is that people have no knowledge of the Garda organisation or the role they are performing. It is a steep learning curve and it’s not fair on them.”

One gradient on that curve involves the existing culture in the organisation. Civilians are being sought to enter a police force which has a closed culture. Within this culture, to a great extent, civilians are not regarded by guards as equals.

Lynn Magriotta.

The attitude among large swathes of gardaí can be traced back to the training college in Templemore. It is now largely accepted that an “us versus them” ethic takes root there and is then cemented in the workplace.

The “them” represents all outside the force. Part of this cultural phenomenon can be ascribed to a necessary esprit de corps. But more of it contributes to what tribunal judge Peter Smithwick once described as a tendency to put “loyalty above honesty”.

What is not often appreciated is that the “them” can also include civilian members of staff. Talk to civilian employees of An Garda Síochána and they will mention the divide. It’s not obvious, and most of the time has absolutely no impact on interpersonal relations. But it does exist.

In many quarters civilian staff are regarded by Garda colleagues as being in the force but not of it. No problem arises in such a milieu as long as everybody knows their place. Whenever the system doesn’t work accordingly though, the divide can take on the character of an ugly chasm.

One example of how the divide can manifest itself is the case of Lynn Margiotta, as reported earlier this week in the Irish Examiner.

Ms Margiotta was a Garda employee of 14 years’ good standing when her problems arose in 2014. Unwell after the sudden death of her mother in January of that year, she was absent from work more than might ordinarily be expected in the six months following the bereavement.

In July she lodged a bullying complaint against a Garda member. Three weeks later she was arrested on suspicion of generating false sick notes in cahoots with her GP brother. The case eventually collapsed in court last month. The investigating garda told the court he believed she was ill at the time but the focus of the investigation was whether the sick notes were fraudulent.

Ms Margiotta went through four and a half years of hell. Her solicitor Yvonne Bambury referenced the “unprecedented circumstances” in which she was criminally investigated for what was a human resources issue. In fact, the investigation against her had elements to it that might be understandable if the guards were pursuing a hardened criminal.

Her brother was also dragged into the whole affair and subjected to a criminal charge and trial.

Ms Margiotta has issued High Court proceedings against the garda commissioner over her treatment, including for malicious prosecution. But two salient points in the case raise issues over the status of civilian staff.

Through the four and a half years of the ordeal, this employee was not once contacted by her employer, An Garda Síochána. The human resource department didn’t contact her to thrash out how her employment might be handled while she was under investigation. They didn’t contact her about income or any of welfare issue that is standard fare in most large organisations. She has not been contacted since the collapse of the trial.

Then there is her bullying complaint. Nothing came of it.

Ms Margiotta was never asked to provide a statement or further proof or anything. There is no record of any investigation into the complaint. Within weeks of Ms Margiotta making the complaint, she was out of the way. Otherwise indisposed. Not in a position to in any way discommode the garda member about whom she complained.

Last Wednesday week, the Irish Examiner asked the garda press office what became of the bullying complaint. Eventually, last Tuesday the response was that there would be no comment on it.

Would Ms Margiotta have been subjected to the same treatment if she was garda member making a complaint about a civilian in the force? Would she have been criminally investigated over sick notes if she was a garda member?

Would she have been left completely out in the cold once an issue arose? These questions require answers if confidence is to be invested in the plans to civilianise the force to the extent envisaged.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast. There is a well of goodwill for the efforts of Commissioner Harris to effect real change in An Garda Síochána.

But unless he can address the malignant elements of garda culture he may well end up on the menu himself.