Cambridge News: Police to employ self-help guru for £80,000
Paul McGee will run his course Shut Up and Move On to help with officers deal with setbacks.POLICE are being taught how to be more positive by a self-help guru - with taxpayers footing the £82,000 bill.
The Cambridgeshire force has been criticised for hiring motivational speaker Paul 'SUMO guy' McGee to teach officers how to stop dwelling on setbacks.
His course, Shut Up and Move On (SUMO), has also been used to motivate Manchester United FC and to spark up ailing Marks & Spencer bosses. But Mark Wallace, campaign director of the Taxpayers' Alliance, slammed the move as money down the drain.
He said: "This is clearly a waste of money and what it does is make officers more unhappy. They will see this as just more red tape and management gimmicks rather than the money being spent to fight crime on the front line."
But Chief Constable Julie Spence has defended her decision to pay for Mr McGee's services.
Mrs Spence said: "To improve public services an investment in staff needs to be made.
Allowing staff to do their own thing the way they've always done it does not get the most from taxpayers' money.
"There's a blind belief that just having police officers and doing things the way they have always been done will deliver the required results but that's just not true."
The force has already spent £14,000 on the course and has earmarked another £68,000 to pay Mr McGee's bill, according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act.
More than 2,700 officers are taking the three-hour long sessions at £29 each and 179 special constables have been invited to attend.
Ian Crowson, who served as an officer with the force for 30 years and is now a force resilience and business continuity officer, said: "I found it extremely useful and have already put some of it into practice in planning the force's response to a swine flu emergency. As a taxpayer, I think it is worth the money."
Mr McGee recently worked as an audience warm-up man on Question Time and appeared in BBC television comedy show Joker In The Pack.
He also performed street theatre in Hollywood during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, according to his website.
The former probation officer was unavailable for comment as he was in Singapore yesterday (Thursday, 16 July).