2022 Police and Justice Conference

Shadow police minister: ‘We need a proper workforce plan for policing’

Shadow minister for policing Sarah Jones (pictured) says there is “a huge job to be done” to work with police staff and officers to fix the problems within the service.

Since coming into post in 2020, Ms Jones has spent time visiting police forces across the country, listening to staff, PCSOs and officers – many of whom are UNISON members – on the challenges they’re facing. The most pressing issues she says, relate to the workforce, pay and budget restraints.

“This government has cut 20,000 officers and then put in 20,000 officers in a clunky, unplanned and un-strategic way. We need a proper workforce plan that considers the right mix of police staff, police officers and PCSOs in order to achieve what we need, and so that the public have confidence that, when a crime is committed, someone can do something about it.”

Echoing her speech delivered to police and justice conference, Ms Jones said the focus most be on people working within the force.

Pay and people

She is starkly aware of how pay is a huge problem within policing. She said: “People are paid less in real terms than they were, and we know that’s only being exacerbated by the cost of living crisis. Police going to food banks is not an uncommon occurrence, or people leaving policing to go to other jobs.

“I recently heard from a police officer who’s now going to become a train driver because it’s a less stressful job and more money. We need to be able to retain our really good police officers and staff so they don’t burn out and go and do something else instead.”

Ms Jones gave an example in Lancashire, where 54 crime recording staff are being replaced by officers: “Forces have to recruit the officers, but the staff are the only place they can make cuts, so we see officers doing the job of police staff”.

She also noted that, where other public services have been cut, the police have become the “public service of last resort”, particularly when it comes to public health-related issues.

“The police have to spend a lot of their time dealing with non-crime related things, and people who are not getting the services they need from other places – particularly those in mental health crises. It’s the police who end up being called, whatever the situation may be.

“In Wales, they’re spending hours supporting the ambulance service. They answer calls from people who are suicidal, who should be getting support elsewhere. The police stay with those people because they can’t leave them. They are also dealing with people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol, who are not getting the support they need because those services have been cut.

“They’re having to deal with both addiction – and the crimes that may be committed because of those addictions – due to other services being cut.”

Ms Jones recounted that in South Wales, only 15% of 999 calls are crime-related – most were about people who were vulnerable, had mental health issues, and people who have gone missing.

Challenging misogyny and sexism

At this year’s police and justice conference, UNISON members unanimously passed a motion to challenge sexism and misogyny in policing.

In Ms Jones’s view, the solution to institutional misogyny within policing comes through strong leadership and management. “The first part of the solution is to speak about the problem. We’ve identified this is a cultural problem within policing that needs to be tackled, and it’s not just through vetting and misconduct and recruitment, all of which are important.

“It’s more about having the leaders and managers in place throughout policing to make sure the right cultures are encouraged.”

“A lot of cuts we’ve had over the last ten years have meant that when new recruits come in, they aren’t getting the leadership they need, there’s poor management and things are overlooked and not dealt with. We’re now speaking the name of the problem, but finding the solution is about structures, misconduct processes and cultural change through good management and leadership.”

Rape and sexual offences

One of the top priorities for Ms Jones is the lack of justice for rape survivors. The latest figures show that only 1.2% of reported rapes lead to a suspect being charged. For the minority of victims whose cases go to trial, the average wait is three years.

“The delays are having a massive impact on victims, a number of victims are dropping out of the system because they can’t bear the whole process. So we’ve said that we will fast track rape cases through the courts.”

This isn’t the first time Ms Jones has spoken about the need to provide greater support to rape victims in the criminal justice process. Last year, she successfully challenged government plans to force rape survivors to hand over their phones to police as part of investigations.

Outlining Labour’s priorities for tackling the epidemic of violence against women and girls, she said: “We will provide advocates and advice for rape victims from the point they first come to the police station so they have some guidance, and are supported through the process.

“We want to see rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO) units in every police station, and we’ve costed and funded that so we can make sure people are supported.”

Mental health

Ms Jones is also concerned about mental health support for those working within the police service.

Last week, figures revealed that a total of 371,988 Metropolitan Police working days were lost due to mental health over a four-year period. Days off taken by police officers for issues such as stress, anxiety, depression or PTSD increased by more than 10,000 in the same period – a 15% jump.

“Labour is calling for a national standard of mental health support for police staff. There are some areas where it’s great, and some areas where it’s less good.

“Whilst we want to maintain the independence of the 43 police forces, we also want to say: ‘This is how people should be treated, and this is the support people expect to get’.”

Labour’s plan for policing

With the political turmoil caused by the mini-budget and the news of Prime Minister Liz Truss’s resignation, Ms Jones is conscious of how much uncertainty the country faces. She declares that it’s Labour’s top priority to “bring stability” to the UK “after 12 years of an economy with low-pay, low growth and that has seen public services decimated.

“If there is an election now and Labour comes into power, we would inherit a significantly worse situation than the last time we were in government. We’ve got to be realistic about what we can do and how fast we can do it, which is why every commitment Labour has made has been costed, and we’ve set out exactly how we’re going to fund it.”

She says Labour’s commitment to place 13,000 additional PCSOs within our neighbourhoods will be funded by £350m in savings from procurement.

Ms Jones believes the route to a strong police service is through focusing on the people working in policing. She said: “It’s about looking at the workforce and saying ‘how do we make this workforce fit for the future?”

Ultimately, whatever plans Ms Jones has for policing, they’ll be developed closely with UNISON.

“If we didn’t have UNISON talking to us about police staff, we would have much poorer policy offers. It’s thanks to our relationship with UNISON that we get so much great information about what’s happening. This means we have a much better proposition to take to the country.”

The article Shadow police minister: ‘We need a proper workforce plan for policing’ first appeared on the UNISON National site.

Delegates pass key motions to protect probation workers

The second day of UNISON’s police and justice conference passed several key motions on the development pathways of police staff, as well as on improvements to the probation service.

Conference passed a key motion on securing development pathways for police staff within the context of ‘operation uplift’ – the government’s pledge to recruit 20,000 additional police officers by March 2023. As of March 2022, 13,576 officers had been recruited.

UNISON believes the increase in police officer numbers is having an adverse effect on police staff, given that many police officers are now taking up roles that have been previously held by police staff.

The motion called for UNISON to enter into discussion with the College of Policing to introduce, without delay, a career pathway for police staff, including guidance on why the police staff roles should be done by police staff, and tackling the ‘blue ceiling’ of manager roles taken by police officers.

Dave Bryant, speaking on behalf of UNISON West Mercia police branch, told delegates: “For too long, police officers have had the majority of opportunities within police services”.

Supporting the motion, Anne Marie Short, from Suffolk police branch said: “Police officers have a clear pathway, working their way up the rank structure and specialising in certain areas. Police staff don’t have such clear guidance. We need a standardised process for all forces to use for the development of their police staff”.

A delegate from Lancashire described how, after accepting her dream community engagement role in 2020, she has found her unit disestablished. She said: “I’m no longer able to do a role that I qualified for at masters level, at my own expense. I shouldn’t have to undervalue the skills and experience that I bring.

“Over a 12-month period, virtually all of our team drifted away, either to other roles internally, or chasing other positions elsewhere. The knock-on impact on my stress levels, on finding out our roles were essentially worthless, was not inconsequential”.

Probation service

Several key motions were passed on providing security and support to UNISON members working in probation, after years of turmoil and instability due to the rapid restructuring of probation due to the failed ‘transforming rehabilitation’ agenda led by Chris Grayling.

Christine Grant, introducing a successful motion on probation service policies on behalf of the national probation committee, said: “Ever since the creation of the national probation service in 2014, UNISON has been fighting to defend our members’ terms and conditions.

“Members who have been transferred to the probation service from community rehabilitation centres (CRCs) have retained distinctive probation service terms and conditions.

“The Ministry of Justice fail to understand the pay and conditions of probation staff. We have had to enter disputes and legal action in order to safeguard our members’ interests.

“We’ve had to fight to retain the right to negotiate over subsistence allowances. We’ve had to fight to get back pay for members who have been upgraded through job evaluation because the civil service does not give back pay on job evaluation outcomes. It is a continual struggle and there is much work that lies ahead to secure our members’ terms and conditions.”

UNISON recognises that, while reunification of probation – after years of fragmentation and privatisation – is a triumph, members working in the service have absorbed huge amounts of turmoil and change. One of the motions passed unanimously demanded the union works to slow down the rate of change within the probation service, to provide consistency both for UNISON members and the people on probation who they support.

Frank Radcliffe from Eastern region probation branch, said: “What we are faced with now is an organisation led by a small army of civil servants, intent on introducing policy after policy, initiative after initiative, making the service more bureaucratic and less independent.”

Jill Harrison, speaking on behalf of the service group executive, commented: “Six years and half a billion pounds of taxpayers’ money poured into the ground, Grayling’s transforming rehabilitation experiments collapsed into disaster. In many respects, it was out of the frying pan and into the fire, because the probation service is now wholly in the control of the civil service, and probation is where the government always wanted it to be, under its thumb.”

“Every week, there’s an avalanche of consultations on ways of working, new jobs and new ideas. Probation staff have not had the chance to settle into the new service. The so-called ‘One HMPPS’ is an attempt to merge the probation and prisons service, and UNISON is opposed to this. We’re working with a broad coalition to protect the future of probation and secure the future of an independent probation service.”

Resisting prison-related plans

Another motion was passed on resisting attempts by the government to impose policies designed for the prison service onto the probation service. Speaking in support of a motion to ‘protect probation’s identity’, one member working in HMP Chelmsford reminded delegates: “The probation ethos is to ‘advise, assist and befriend’. We may share the same service users as the prison service, but our ways of working are very different.”

Vice president of the service group Debi Potter said: “The profession of probation is under threat. The Ministry of Justice is gradually eroding its independence and ethos. First probation was split up, then privatised, then reunified after several years of mismanagement.

“Now, under centralised command under HMPPS, probation remains under threat because the public service ethos is being subsumed.”

Prior to the privatisation of probation in 2014, the probation service was run by 35 independent probation trusts, each run by a chief probation officer with authority equivalent to that of a chief police constable.

Ms Potter said that the independence of the probation service was “always seen as a threat to the Ministry of Justice: too independent, too outspoken in defence of probation, so they had to go. Now there’s only one chief probation officer, who is a civil servant, and recently the justice secretary made a decision to prevent probation officers making recommendations to parole boards on the release of people from prison.

“We’re facing the threat of merging probation with prison services. We’ve already seen probation officers line-managed by prison governors. We need to maintain the independence and ethos of probation.”

Other motions passed included those on police health and safety, and removing job-related fitness tests for police staff, which do not make allowances for any person with disabilities, menopausal women or an ageing workforce.

The article Delegates pass key motions to protect probation workers first appeared on the UNISON National site.

‘Policing and justice is about people,’ says shadow minister

Addressing the UNISON police and justice conference yesterday, shadow police minister Sarah Jones underlined the importance of police workforce planning in order to build a modern police force that has “the best mix of skills and talents to fight the changing nature of crime”.

Ms Jones said: “When Labour was in government, the future of the police workforce, and how we plan for it, was a priority. Since the Tories came in, over a decade ago, the workforce planning all but disappeared under the austerity measures”.

“A Labour government will re-establish workforce planning in the Home Office. We will look at the workforce in its entirety – police officers, police staff – and work to establish how the service needs to change over time to more effectively tackle crime.

“Modern policing is about every role, and how we can better support you all, and improve the way you work together – to tackle the challenges of crime and policing now and in the future.”

Crime

Taking aim at the Conservative government, Ms Jones said: “We know that the Tories essentially gave up on fighting crime years ago. We have ministers trying to stoke culture wars to deflect from their failures to tackle crime and improve the police service.

“Burglary, car theft and rape have effectively been decriminalised.

“The services that prevent crime have been cut. The public expects that when they are a victim of crime, something will be done. Yet our country has a criminal justice system on its knees with court delays at epidemic levels.”

PCSOs

Ms Jones highlighted the 50% cut in the number of police community support officers (PCSOs) since the Conservatives came to power in 2010, asking: “How can the decimation of one of the most effective roles in the country have happened without anyone seeing it coming or trying to mitigate the impact?”

Noting this year’s celebration of 20 years of PCSOs, she said that PCSOs have been transformational to British society – “not just in reducing crime and antisocial behaviour, but in developing the model of policing by consent”.

Ms Jones outlined Labour’s fully-costed policies that will drive the necessary changes in policing and justice, which include a £360m programme to put 13,000 additional police and PCSOs into communities. This is the equivalent of 15-20 extra police staff for every constituency.

Mental health

Observing that over 13,000 police officers were absent due to stress, depression, anxiety or post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the past financial year, compared to 8,450 before, Ms Jones told delegates that only a few of the 43 forces offer a good occupational health standard.

Ms Jones, who is also Labour MP for Croydon Central, said: “We cannot afford for mental health and wellbeing support for police to be as patchy as it is now, especially when it’s increasingly the police who are picking up the pieces when other services fail, supporting the vulnerable, the mentally ill, the sick.

“More than half of forces have not done a full assessment on the state of their occupational health support.”

Labour priorities for policing

Ms Jones also told delegates: “Labour will take strong action to tackle violence against women and girls, providing new specialist domestic abuse support for 999 emergencies.

“We will put specialist rape units in every police force. We will fast track rape and sexual violence cases through the courts.

“We will support young people at risk of getting pulled into crime, with mental health professionals, safer schools officers and mentors to support young people at risk.

“All the evidence shows that tackling trauma from childhood can break the cycle and prevent a child from becoming a criminal or stop a criminal from reoffending.”

Ms Jones ended her speech thanking UNISON members for their work in policing and justice, and promising to work with UNISON on a police and justice service “that makes us all proud”.

The article ‘Policing and justice is about people,’ says shadow minister first appeared on the UNISON National site.

UNISON police and justice conference opens in Telford

Hundreds of delegates gathered in Telford today for UNISON’s police and justice service group conference, in order to decide the union’s priorities for over 50,000 members working in the sector across the England, Scotland and Wales.

UNISON represents people working in policing and probation, from call handlers and community support officers probation officers, custody assistants, cleaners and canteen staff, with 60% of police staff being women.

Chaired by UNISON vice president Libby Nolan, the first day of the conference passed several motions relating to pay and the cost of living.

Cost of living crisis

One delegate, speaking in support of a motion on pay claims and mileage allowances said: “A member approached me last week to say she was making difficult decisions on whether to attend medical appointments, because she couldn’t afford the fuel costs to get to work and get to her appointments.

“My office is set up with a clothing rail for members of staff to donate clothes to others, and it’s so popular that we’ve extended it to children’s clothing too. Our force is now allocating a specific room for this.”

Speaking in support of the motion on behalf of the service group executive, Annie Powell asked delegates: “Can policing and probation maintain the staff they need to provide valuable public services?”

Cuts to the probation service

One of the most passionate motions of the day focused on UNISON’s efforts to prevent any further cuts to probation services.

Introducing the motion, Frank Radcliffe from Eastern region, said: “If they cut any more of the probation services, we’ll bleed to death. We know that Tory tactics are all about shrinking the state, and giving services to private contractors.

“We’ve seen the effect on our communities: it damages staff morale, creates more victims of crime, creates more serious offences and fails to address the vicious cycle of reoffending.”

The probation service has undergone drastic cuts and chaotic restructuring in the past decade, driven by Chris Grayling’s failed ‘transforming rehabilitation’ agenda, which sought to outsource medium and low-risk probation cases to privatised community rehabilitation centres (CRCs), leaving the government-run National Probation Service (NPS) responsible for high-risk cases.

In June 2021, all services were returned in-house to the government.

Vice-chair of UNISON national probation committee Elisa Vasquez-Walters referenced a recent HMPPS report on probation services in London, which marked several areas of London’s probation services as inadequate.

“They are in no way doing inadequate work. Many probation offices are down 50% on staff, and that sort of job cannot be done on those numbers. I do not believe that probation is in any way protected with the government we have now.”

Another delegate noted: “The probation service cannot effectively recruit staff. Those it does recruit, it struggles to retain. Many leave within the first year or two of service.

“I spoke to someone recently who said the most experienced member of staff in their office had five years service. In my region, every probation unit is working in red or amber – bare minimum offender contact, very little rehabilitation work is happening, it’s simply risk management.”

Another delegate added: “People leave because it’s not what they signed up for. People came to the service because they want to help people and rehabilitate people, but all they’re getting now is target after target, and more and more paperwork”.

Challenging sexism, harassment and misogyny

The most emotive speeches of the morning centred on a motion for the union to actively challenge sexism, harassment and misogyny in the police.

One delegate described how she had raised two complaints about police officers for sexual harassment and misogyny in and out of work. “Why didn’t I report it sooner?” she asked. “Because of the culture inside the police, and the stress and the terror involved in putting my head above the parapet to do the right thing – not the easy thing.”

Joanne Moorcroft from Cheshire police branch and the North West women’s committee said that tackling sexism and misogyny will have a positive impact on tackling domestic abuse within the police force.

She told conference: “There is a constant trickle of disrespect, belittlement and harassment. Misogyny is the norm, where men believe they have the right to have power over women, and treat them as lesser beings.

“Every day, women are subjected to sexist harassment in the workplace and told to pass it off as banter. I believe our workplaces know that sexism and misogyny know it’s an important issue to address, but there’s a culture of ‘it doesn’t happen here'”.

Mark Trask, who introduced the motion on behalf of the service group executive, said: “The terms used over and over are “bravery and confidence”, we need to get to a place where we don’t need to be brave to call out this behaviour. I’d like everyone here to make a pledge to do something about it. Let’s be the agents of change to make this change.”

Other motions passed included:

a demand to lobby for parity between PCSOs and officers’ rates for uniform laundry allowances;
a demand to mandate ethnicity pay gap reporting among police forces;
reinforcing the social model of disability within policing and trans equality in the sector;
a call to campaign for extra funding to increase the numbers of police community support officers (PCSOs) in England by an additional 7,600 posts to replace those lost since 2010. PCSO numbers have been cut by 45% since 2010.

The article UNISON police and justice conference opens in Telford first appeared on the UNISON National site.