40. Memorandum submitted by
Unison Police Staff
1. INTRODUCTION
UNISON is the UK's biggest trade union and also
the largest union representing staff in the police service. We
have over 32,000 police staff in membership in England, Scotland
and Wales, as well as members in CENTREX, NCS, NCIS and the Police
Ombudsman's Office in Northern Ireland. Our membership density
is an average 55% of the police staff workforce, rising to 70%
among the growing Police Community Support Officer workforce.
This submission sets out UNISON's view of "Building
Communities—Beating Crime" for the Home Affairs Select
Committee. We take this opportunity to concentrate on the workforce
modernisation proposals within the white paper. The Committee
is asked to note that the term "police staff" is the
name of choice for our members in the police service. It replaces
the old fashioned and derogatory misnomer "police civilian".
2. SYNOPSIS
This submission is split into the following
sections:
— UNISON overview of White Paper
— Community Policing/Customer focus
— Workforce modernisation
3. UNISON OVERVIEW
UNISON, welcomes the publication of the Police
Reform White Paper—"Building Communities, Beating Crime".
"Building Communities, Beating Crime"
sets out a very positive vision for workforce modernisation. It
promises a whole range of much needed reforms to open up career
pathways and opportunities for police staff. It will place our
members in a much stronger position to help drive up police performance
and deliver a responsive service.
But all this will suffer, if police authorities
are forced to make police staff redundant as a result of the 2004
police funding settlement. That surely cannot be what the Government
wants, because it will result in police officers having to come
off the front line to fill for those police staff who have been
redundant!
4. COMMUNITY
POLICING/CUSTOMER
FOCUS
4.1 UNISON's PCSO members strongly support
the neighbourhood policing teams proposed by the White Paper.
They identify with the community bridge-building role envisaged
in the proposals; many are already engaged in this vital work.
PCSOs are also working creatively to fashion a distinctive police
staff patrol role which enables them to stand in a different relationship
to communities than police officers, constrained as the latter
are by the delivery of response time targets and other abstraction
from visible policing.
4.2 UNISON therefore welcomes the Neighbourhood
Policing fund, because it will allow police forces to make appropriate
decisions on the skill mix within the police workforce. However,
the current short term funding for PCSO posts has generated understandable
anxiety on the part of our PCSO members about their future job
security. UNISON's aim is to have all PCSOs appointed on permanent
contracts to enhance service delivery and to emphasise the Government's
social responsibility for the workforce.
4.3 UNISON also supports, in principle,
the development of guaranteed service standards for the police
staff workforce.
Although we support guaranteed service standards,
there has to be a recognition on the part of Government that such
standards require concomitant training, resourcing and appropriate
terms and conditions. There are also significant structural barriers
to service improvement in areas such as police call handling,
because of industrial relations problems over: staffing levels,
training, quality of management, stress and health and safety.
These issues will have to be tackled first by the service if the
guaranteed service standards are to receive buy-in from staff.
UNISON expects that these issues will be handled by the Police
Staff Council, where the tripartite partners and the police staff
trade unions can have the detailed negotiations necessary to bring
in police reform.
4.4. UNISON supports the concept of a single
non-emergency telephone number with the proviso that it is run
by directly employed, properly trained police staff call-handlers.
We will oppose any proposals to outsource the non-emergency number
service because privatisation would fragment, not streamline,
service delivery. As with guaranteed service standards, UNISON
expects that the single non-emergency number will be delivered
via social partnership and not imposed without consultation.
4.5 IMPROVED
CALL HANDLING
Police staff call handlers are one of the biggest
single occupational groups in the workforce and UNISON's membership
is very high amongst this group. UNISON supports the development
of call handling standards, but we emphasise again that these
will not succeed unless the manifest HR/industrial relations problems
that beset this sector of the service are first tackled. Our call
handler members complain of under-staffing, poor training, ineffective
resource management and health and safety problems with stress.
We aim to work with the tripartite partners to put these structural
problems right.
4.6 IMPROVED
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
UNISON supports the vision of increased local
authority engagement in the management and accountability of police
authorities. We therefore welcome the proposal top put the local
authority cabinet member with community safety responsibility
on the police authority. We also welcome the Government's decision
to locate the "community advocate" role in local authority
councillors. We expect that both proposals will help to improve
the democratic accountability and accessibility of police authorities
to local people.
5. WORKFORCE
MODERNISATION
5.1 UNISON welcomes the proposals on workforce
modernisation set out in the White Paper. As the majority union
representing police staff, we have reflected very positively on
the way in which this administration has recognised the value
of police staff. Successive police ministers since 2001 have brought
UNISON and our members into the political process of police reform.
Our engagement with ministers and officials has enabled our members,
at last, to have a voice in the development of policing policy
and practice. The Home Office request to join the Police Staff
Council, agreed by the unions, was a further positive step in
this engagement.
5.2 The workforce modernisation proposals
in the White Paper represent many of the ambitions that our members
have to utilise their productive time more effectively to drive
service improvement. In headline terms, we particularly welcome:
— police staff access to the core leadership
development programme;
— a police staff high potential development
scheme;
— a separate process for police staff
to gain access to the constable role;
— a police staff council review of
police staff career structures;
— a ban on BNP/Combat 18/National Front
Membership; and
— more family friendly working.
— a new relationship between the Police
Staff Council and the Police Advisory Board
5.3 On behalf of our growing PCSO membership
we welcome the proposals in the White Paper to ensure a minimum
set of powers for CSOs and to roll out the power of detention.
Our CSO members have also supported the award of additional powers
such as the power to search, deal with the night time economy
and tackle vagrancy. Of course, such additional powers raise questions
regarding equipment, training, support and health and safety.
Our PCSO members expect these matters to be resolved prior to
additional powers coming on stream.
The proposals in the White Paper for PCSO role
profiles, a national recruitment scheme and the standardisation
of PCSO terms and conditions are all very positive and supported
by UNISON. The proposed growth in the PCSO workforce demands a
more strategic approach to HR and industrial relations as far
as PCSOs are concerned. It is very positive that the Government
has identified the Police Staff Council as the arena in which
these discussions will take place.
UNISON is serious about our organisation for
PCSOs. In most forces, UNISON membership among PCSOs is running
at 70% and we are rapidly recruiting stewards and health and safety
reps in the workforce. We aim to convene a national panel of PCSO
reps to help inform our national work in this vital new area of
policing. Our PCSO members have been stung by unfair, divisive
and disproportionate attacks on their professionalism and standing
by some in the service and in certain sections of the media. UNISON
has rebutted these criticisms, which have only served to make
our members more determined to serve their communities with pride
and commitment to the community policing ethos.
5.4 UNISON is pleased that for the first
time ever, the Police Staff Council is referred to in a police
White Paper. At long last, the industrial relations machinery
for the police staff workforce has been officially recognised
and given a central role in the police reform process. UNISON
holds the Chair and Secretariat of the Council, and we have been
seeking for many years to raise the profile and status of the
machinery. Unfortunately, this has been hampered by the fact that
three forces historically did not join the Council. The Council
has also been held back in the past by a small number of police
forces who although part of the machinery, had little or no commitment
to the national collective bargaining process. These forces have
sought to undermine collective agreements with the result that
police staff terms and conditions are now fragmented across forces.
This will present a difficulty for the police reform process because
it makes it very difficult to direct strategic change on HR from
the centre.
5.5. UNISON welcomes the Government's intention
to "converge" the status of police staff and police
officers. For too long our members have been viewed as second
class citizens in a service which focused solely on the police
officer workforce.
5.6 Inevitably, as our members' powers and
their roles expand, they will expect to be properly and fairly
rewarded for their professionalism. This, in turn, throws the
disparity between police staff and police officer terms and conditions
into starker relief than before. The development of the Integrated
Competency Framework should provide a helpful tool to begin the
process of converging the terms and conditions of the two separate
parts of the workforce. UNISON does not expect this process of
convergence to lead to police staff and police officers being
on exactly the same terms and conditions, but closer alignment
is the logical outcome of the current reform process. It is also
an outcome that our members are demanding.
5.7 In 2002, police officers received a
substantially improved new terms and conditions package linked
to police reform. Police staff have received no such package.
UNISON has made the case repeatedly for a comparative police reform
pay and conditions package for our members. Following pressure
from UNISON, the Police Staff Council pay deal in 2002 committed
the Council to open negotiations on a range of structural matters
concerning police staff pay and conditions. This resulted, earlier
this year in UNISON producing a major submission to the Employers
setting out what we want for our members out of the Pay and Reward
Review.
UNISON is disappointed that the police staff
Pay and Reward Review is not explicitly mentioned in the White
Paper, because it would have sent a strong message to our members
that their interests were being actively dealt with in the industrial
relations context. The HMIC "Workforce Modernisation"
Thematic report earlier this year proposed a range of very positive
HR outcomes for police staff to help deliver on the Government's
police reform process. These included:
— a single job evaluation scheme for
police staff in all forces in England and Wales; and
— greater standardisation of pay for
similar, or comparable, police staff jobs across forces.
UNISON's submission to the Police Staff Council
Pay and Reward Review also highlights these issues. The Service
will need to make real substantive progress on these matters if
the confidence of police staff in the reform process is to be
maintained.
5.8 UNISON has asked the Home Office for
more resources to support the work of the Police Staff Council.
At the moment it is underfunded and under resourced and frankly
will struggle to deliver on the Government's ambitious police
reform agenda.
29 November 2004
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