Diary of a former Bow Street Runner

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Before I left, I noticed the force renamed quite a few of its departments, from a name that provided a vague insight into what the department did, to names that seemed utterly meaningless, excessively multi-syllabic and appeared to be the result of putting a collection of nouns into a hat and drawing two or three at a time to form the new name, often with the nouns bearing no correlation to the work carried out.

I have two theories as to why this is the case - either there's a competition between forces to have departments with the most syllables in their names (each syllable incurs a point); or the vaguer the name of the unit, the wider their remit can be creatively interpreted, and thus more irrelevant work can be shovelled in their direction.

Here's some examples:

Tutor Unit becomes the Professional Development Unit
Accident Investigation Unit becomes the Collision Reconstruction Unit
A new unit set up mainly to deal with intelligence becomes the Operational Tasking Unit and seems to be doing everything now.
What used to be Section and gets shafted with any positive lines crime on the division becomes the Area Policing Team
Volume Crime Unit (shoplifter squad) becomes the Volume Crime Prisoner Processing Unit

Even more ironic was the renaming of some units to sound more paramilitary, at a time when providing a friendly, corporate image seems to be important, such as the Dog Unit becoming the Tactical Dog Unit. I predict the imminent establishment of the Tactical Paperwork Unit, given the mission of strategic insertion of arbitrary forms into the daily routine of police officers everywhere.

Any more for any more?
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