James Merchant

Working closely with planning teams across the Division to ensure the organisation has a proportionate deployment and response to pre-planned and spontaneous incidents, as well as major incidents, both locally and nationally.

• Kept up-to-date on the latest laws, procedures and best practices through continuous professional development.
• Ensured a supportive culture that recognises and values diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and challenges intolerance and unconscious bias.
• Promoted best practice problem-solving approaches and evidence-based activity within teams.
• Managed threat, harm and risk with care and precision to enable efficient service delivery, minimising the risk to the public, whilst maximising the safety of my team and wider workforce .
• Built and maintained relationships with colleagues, communities and external partners to ensure a collaborative approach.
• Provide assessments based on threat and vulnerability within my remit of Counter Terrorism Security Co-ordinator

as a Chief Inspector, I am a ambassador for policing, continually working towards building trust and legitimacy, through the actions of myself and my teams. My focus is on balancing immediate priorities, based on threat, harm, risk principals, with an awareness of what matters most to the public. I support the local policing model and seek to find innovative solutions to mid and long term issues through partnership working..

• Analysed and evaluated effectiveness of existing processes and practices and implemented opportunities for change and improvement.
• Through coaching and mentoring, I encouraged and supported others to make their own decisions and take ownership of their activities.
• I balanced risks, costs and benefits associated with decisions, thinking about the wider impact, whilst challenging previous methodologies and utilising creative and innovative ideas from the workforce to enhance delivery.
• Engaged with external partners to support instances of mental health crisis, both internally and externally
• I used my knowledge of the wider external environment and long-term situations to inform effective decision making, identifying the root cause to ensure lasting impact.
• socialised ideas and changes to ensure the workforce feels apart of the change and works with it rather than against it.

Planned with partners protective security throughout the rail infrastructure, focusing on a safe and secure games, my element of the operation deployed 400 officers across a number sites in the West Midlands and London.

• Constructed a testing and exercising regime for operational plans, major incidents, ensuring robust command protocols and effective communication.
• Reviewed counter terrorism security arrangements and providing recommendation to maximise safety of the whole community and visitors to the region.
• Worked with partners to review CCTV capabilities across all of our sites to understand limitations and provided appropriate mitigations and enhancements
• Constructed a deployment model ensuring a focus on value and enhanced service delivery. I held a budget responsibility of £3 .7 million, which I found £1.6 million of efficiencies that could be re distributed to the wider games security project.
• Presented high level reports to senior leaders within my Organisation, Department for Transport and local delivery partners
• Negotiated Grayspace/Zone X definition, inline with the green guide, ensuring the safety of the public with Birmingham City Council, West Midlands Police, other blue light partners, and transport for West Midlands.

Implementation of the Birmingham Firearms Hub, within a mainline train station, which had not previously been done outside of London. Managing community impact, whilst forging new partnerships with West Midlands Police, overseeing building works and recruiting and onboarding four teams of firearms officers, as well as patrolling and responding to high risk situations.

• Wrote memorandum of understanding with other forces in relation to firearm carriage, use, communication and post deployment procedures.
• Enforced safety protocols and activity rules to reduce risks.
• Reviewed spontaneous and pre-planned incidents against a collapsing time frame, focusing on maximising safety of officers and staff and minimising risk to the public and victims.
• Operational CBRNe commander providing response to chemical biological incidents.

Providing operation and event planning across the West Midlands and supporting resilience planning across teams and departments.

• Created and implemented new strategy and policy documents relating to policing football and events across the rail network, bringing teams together to understand perspectives of others and ensure organisational buy in.
• Continually reviewed business continuity plans across all venues within my area of control and testing opportunities.
• Reviewed assets across the division and provided business cases to increase capability based on a threat risk and harm assessment and obligations of Article 2 ECHR

Managed teams of operators taking calls and information gathering from 999 calls and social media, deploying resources effectively and utilising CCTV to enhance information and intelligence. Working with other agencies to understand risk and ensure clear communication and working strategy is adopted.

• Learning and development Sgt, implementing training and managing development of new recruits.
• College of Policing ambassador, embedding professional values of policing and the introduction of the Code of Ethics.
• Officer in Charge of station and neighbourhood team, emphasis on partnership working.
• Proactive Tasking Team, focusing on metal theft and cable crime impacting the infrastructure, sharing information with other agencies and forces to tackle this organised criminality.
• Operational Support Officer - dealing with public order and public safety events
• Neighbourhood Policing Constable, creating key individual networks delivering what matters most to the communities.