Policing UK 2013 - Police Federation

THE POLICE REFORM PROGRAMME
A broader
workforce
Sir Peter Fahy explains why police
staff rather than police officers will
make up a bigger proportion of
overall police numbers in the future
Sir Peter Fahy is Chief Constable
of Greater Manchester Police
The current economic crisis is
affecting the workforce in all
organisations and the police
service is no exception. Along with
uncertainty over job security, pay and
pensions lies the need to adapt to new
working practices, new technologies and
reduced staffing levels.
More fundamentally, most organisations
are expecting more of their staff, flattening
management structures and ensuring
that investments in training and staff
development produce tangible benefits.
The Winsor Report and the Neyroud
Report have laid out a clearer strategy for
enhancing the professional status of police
officers, creating a culture of evidencebased
practice and moving to a system of
pay and reward more dependent on levels
of expertise and contribution rather than
time served. It is fair for our police staff
colleague to ask ‘what about us?’.
The term ‘police staff ’ itself is not
well understood outside policing,
indicating a level of confusion and
discomfort over where those who are
not police officers fit into the police
landscape going forward. This is despite
the fact that in some forces 50 per cent
of the workforce is now made up of
police staff and indeed this mix in our
workforce is another distinguishing
factor between British policing and
policing worldwide.
On the other hand the public does
now seem to understand and accept
that crime scene investigators are not
police officers and yet play a vital role
in detecting crime and also understand
that too much police officer effort is
still spent on ‘paperwork’, which could
be done by others. They have accepted
that those who answer phones and staff
police enquiry counters are not police
“In some forces, 50 per cent of
the workforce is now made up of
police staff… this mix is another
distinguishing factor between British
policing and policing worldwide.”
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