Police Federation S From Sam Dobbs Federation Office Chair – Northamptonshire Branch Wootton Hall Park Extension 343805 NN4 0JA Mobile: 07887 781717 Telephone 03000 111 222 Email: [email protected] Ext 341048

MEMBERS’ UPDATE | 14 AUGUST 2020

Dear Member

I had some positive and welcome feedback from the member update I sent out at the end of July, so take the opportunity to offer a further August update as there has been so much going on.

Op Talla and Coronavirus The Federation has been well-consulted and involved in recent decisions and messages about Quarantine and Annual Leave. The Chief has been considerate about the approach to the shifting sands of travel corridors and quarantine, and we were spoken to and were involved with the recommendation to ask our members to register any foreign travel booked or as it is booked so that the force response to any changes can be genuinely on a case by case basis, taking into account role and timings of booking. If you have foreign travel booked, please contact the Op Talla team. You should have by now seen the updates on Covid19 and the action plans now in place in , , and Northampton Boroughs, and that local lockdowns might follow. We still await the fall-out from the Greencore outbreak at Northampton and are just receiving news of post-foreign travel quarantine being extended to France, Malta and The Netherlands.

My appeal to members is to keep on top of the local information and ensure that our own social distancing and use of masks and face coverings protects us all. Note that the 300 positive tests at Greencore were predominantly asymptomatic. This is all in Supt Foskett’s vlog on Daily Orders of 13 August 2020 which I ask you to check out if you haven’t already. You will find a link here or on the accompanying email. https://northants.intranet.police.uk/news/Pages/Operational-PPE-and-face-coverings- guidance-.aspx

Taser Our Chief Constable made national news when he offered to issue Taser to all officers wishing to carry this non-lethal option. He has not been without criticism of some, even though he clearly shifted a momentum, supported by the Commissioner and the . He has asked that those 300+ officers who carry Taser to complete a survey online, to give their feedback as we reach a milestone in the history of Taser use in Northamptonshire Police. I ask that you support this survey to get us beyond the 100 or so who have responded so far. The link to the survey is on the accompanying email and here https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/TaserQuestionnaire

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Policing through the lens of social media Policing has been having a rough ride of late with any number of video clips being posted of officers doing their job. Our national Chair is John Apter and he has written to me and all Chairs to say

‘With recent events involving our members having their every move recorded and then being put on trial via social media we have been calling for their Body Worn Video to be released publicly. This would bring some context and give balance to what is very often a one-sided and toxic narrative. In response, I have today sent the attached letter to Martin Hewitt and Mike Cunningham. Please feel free to share with your local Reps.

Chief Constable Martin Hewitt is President of the National Police Chiefs’ Council and Chief Constable Mike Cunningham is Head of the College of Policing. The full letter is attached to the email accompanying this letter. Please continue to be mindful about social media and note the DCC’s latest reminder which was sent out during the week. Equally, do let a Fed rep or senior officer know if you become aware that you have been filmed policing in a way which could court criticism, controversy or mischief, so your interests and those of the force can be considered with the full context.

Promotions and fairness In my handover from the Acting Chair in February 2020, I was given a list of 110+ posts occupied by temporary or acting ranks. Since SDM the force had trodden water, hesitant to promote people substantively whilst waiting to know whether the numbers and money added up. In my humble opinion, this has created problems with culture as different promotion systems have been adopted. And every temporary promotion creates a vacancy behind it, and this leads to issues (eventually) at constable level. It has led to ad-hoc and (frankly) unfair temporary promotions, followed by Covid19. During this time, we have had to concede it was not the time to be making an issue of this because the national exam was cancelled. Your Federation agreed with Chief Officers that normal ‘peacetime’ rules would need relaxing whilst in the Covid ‘wartime.’ This was tempered with an agreement from Chief Officers that:

1. All temporary and acting ranks would be reviewed in the Autumn when the national exam was rescheduled

2. The promotion process would be simplified and demystified

3. The number of temporary and acting ranks would be reduced

4. Any requirements on ‘temping up’ for any period would be removed so that anyone exhibiting the required criteria for the next rank (at sergeant and level), supported by their line manager, would be able to go forward to a professional discussion and, on successful conclusion of that discussion, would be placed on work-based assessment with a presumption of substantive promotion

Sergeants: This has meant that a process was opened for sergeants, and we expect that 20 officers will move to WBA (Work-based Assessment) and substantive promotion to sergeant in the forthcoming weeks. The seven unsuccessful candidates will be offered a 3 month development plan. This will leave 26 sergeant vacancies. When Chief 2

Officers then removed the temping requirement (at our request), a further pool of qualified opened up. This further pool of 59 qualified officers are being contacted to identify those that wish to take place in a second wave of the sergeant promotion process in October/November. 60 constables are registered to sit the rescheduled national exam cancelled as a result of Covid. You will see that this means that for the first time in years, most of our sergeant posts will be occupied by substantive sergeants.

Inspectors: This promotion process is current. We have 22 vacancies in this rank (depending on the Chief Inspector promotions). We have 31 officers qualified to apply. 20 submitted applications (once the temping requirement was removed). 45 sergeants have expressed an interest in sitting the next national exam for . This will also mean that for the first time in years, most, if not all, of our inspector posts will be occupied by substantive inspectors.

Chief Inspectors: Alongside Sgt Curlett and Sgt Sae-Thang, I was asked by the Chief to address the 30+ applicants at a familiarisation event. Following on from this, 14 inspectors (12 from in-force and 2 external candidates) have passed the paper-sift for this promotion process. Boards will take place next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, when candidates will sit before the Chief Constable, ACC Sturman and DCS Behan for 80 minutes each. The Federation has been asked, and the Federation Council has agreed that I will, sit in as observer to this process.

Newly promoted officers will then be posted to their new roles following succession planning meetings headed by the Head of HR (now Sarah Johnson). This means that all unqualified acting roles will cease and all temporary roles will have been reviewed. I cannot stress enough how positive this is for the Force and our members, and how the process has become transparent and evidence-based. At this week’s Vacancy Panel, I stressed how much of an achievement all this is for our Force and thanked the many people responsible. And I wish all those preparing for, or going through promotion processes, all the very best.

National Pay & Morale Survey The Police Federation of & Wales’ Pay and Morale survey has been open for a couple of weeks now. Since then we have gathered over 21,600 responses from our members nationally. However, only 165 responses, or 14% of federated rank members, have been received from Northamptonshire Police members. This is the only national survey which captures your views on pay and conditions. It has already made a big difference to influencing discussions on policing with the 2.5% across-the-board uplift this September and the removal of the lowest point on the sergeants’ pay scale which we argued for. Please would you take a few moments so Northamptonshire members have their say? The link to the survey is here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/pfewpaysurvey2020

Conduct and Performance We continue to represent members in various processes where integrity, conduct and performance has been called into question. We assist members in claims using the Fairness at Work Scheme. We work closely with HR to support officers in difficulty for whatever reason. Work-based representatives and full time/principal officers work with 3 members and the Force and I am delighted that two student officers have had their proposed dismissal appeals upheld. The long-awaited arrival of Alan McMahon as the full-time Conduct and Performance Lead Officer has assisted the other conduct-trained representatives no end and he already has a busy workload alongside Pat Percival, Simon Seed, Adam Dixon-Kelly and Charlotte Pateman, our other conduct officers.

Custody A new process to identify custody officers has been implemented and there will be an expectation that newly-promoted uniform sergeants will rotate into this role. The number of custody inspectors has increased to four, under a Chief Inspector, which until now, has been a Leicestershire Officer (formerly CI Natalee Wignall). On her transfer and promotion to PSD Superintendent in Northants, her successor (to be posted from the current CI Boards) will be a Northamptonshire officer, and there has been an agreement that LPA Commanders will have more involvement in day to day activities within the custody suites. One consideration currently under consultation is to review the duty start time of the Custody Inspectors to spread cover at 7am. The Federation is being consulted on this, as are the post-holders.

Duty Inspector cover It is accepted that countywide cover for one duty inspector is untenable at times (around 150 examples recently provided). ACC Andronov has tasked Chief Superintendent Stamper with reviewing how the norm can become having a duty inspector on both LPAs at all times. The Federation is involved with this process and welcomes this support for our sergeant and constable frontline officers as they become younger in experience. Because of all that has been said about temporary promotions, we will not support having to act people up, and our position will be that if the cover cannot be provided without acting up, then the number of cadre inspectors needs reviewing.

JNCC (Joint Negotiating & Consultation Committee) I was delighted that we were recently able to have our first Crime JNCC, a meeting which will have the Chair rotated through Supt Rymarz, Supt Tompkins, Supt McBride and Mandy Rowlatt (police staff manager), Superintendent-equivalent. It was a lively and relevant meeting which was of benefit to all. I am particularly grateful to Simon Seed, the work-based representative within Crime Command, for his hard work getting this off the ground. JNCCs now exist on both LPAs and for the Crime command.

Support of the Chief Constable and PFCC Part of the job of the principal officers of the Federation is to meet regularly with these senior leaders. My recent 121s as Chair, with the Commissioner and the Chief Constable have included the following:

 Estates – the plans for Derby Close, Wellingborough and the centralisation of Police & Fire Enabling Services staff, and the co-location there of our chief officers , the knock-on effect on other buildings within the estate and how to manage dilapidated buildings in the meantime, quoting examples raised at local JNCCs

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 Healthcare of our staff - how we can work together to vaccinate our staff for the winter flu virus and hepatitis, and continue to be proactive with the Coronavirus developments

 Thin Blue Line – the Federation has purchased a new flag for the Force, following heavy social media discussion on this symbolic gesture, led by the Chief Constable, to honour and commemorate fallen colleagues. On 15 August, it will be one year since PC Andrew Harper was killed on duty in the TVP area. We are all asked if we might be silent at 11am on the 15th in solidarity with a memorial taking place in his home force area.

 Post-incident management facilities and how we can work better together to raise awareness and improve the facilities for this very important process

 Area Training Days and skills updates – how we can upskill and maintain skills of our diverse workforce given the constant business and change processes to move responsibilities around the force

 Staff Survey – ensuring that all the results of the previous survey are shared before embarking on a new survey

 Court delays – current media interest in the national 520,000 case backlog and the potential effect on our members in trying to maintain confident in justice (also concerns that the CPS might be minded to divert cases which would ordinarily have gone to court)

 Promotions – as previously covered, and the impact of far fewer temping opportunities (it is healthy to have some but these will be vastly reduced)

 IPLDP – the Chief Constable and Commissioner have agreed to run another IPLDP intake before the process ends, from the pool of 150+ interested candidates – something we actively supported

 FP25 – positive feedback from me on inclusion of the Federation on planned changes to the Crime departments. I stressed the need to ensure equity of work between inspectors and chief inspectors, the need to fairly review flexible working patterns and to consider equality impact assessments – all in hand

 Working from home – the need for more intersectionality between Digital, Op Talla, Agile working, HR work-streams etc

 Impact of discipline cases on officer welfare with current examples

 Positive feedback on the ‘can-do’ service from ISD through Op Talla and generally

 Concerns about timeliness of Fairness at Work claims – ongoing dialogue with the Head of DEI and Head of HR

 Chief Constable’s Annual Report – see overleaf 5

Performance of the Force I have no interest or desire in being sycophantic to senior/chief officers in representing your interests. However, I cannot let the second anniversary of the Chief Constable’s appointment pass without reference to his Annual Report. He is at times unorthodox and at other times controversial but at ALL times passionate about ‘his’ officers and staff and this shines through when I meet with him. He stressed his desire to provide the best working environment and tools for us so that we can fight crime and protect the public. A lot rides on the service deliverers as our performance was woeful when he arrived. None of us want to be part of a failing team.

Before my 121, I took some time with a cup of tea to watch him handle a live Q&A session on Facebook. It was fascinating to see and hear the incoming questions from the public and his responses on our behalf. I also read his concise Annual Report and I conclude with the headlines. I commend both to you, and you will find a list of links in the email to which this document is attached. But they are

Annual Report: https://www.flipgorilla.com/p/26675824929278901/show

Facebook Q/A: You will have to send this link to a non-force device because, bizarrely, you cannot open this on a force computer https://www.facebook.com/northantspolice/videos/northamptonshire-police-live-chief- constable-nick-adderley-qa/759433574867657/

In these two publications, you get a good feel about the way the force is going. But if you don’t have time to do that, get this:

On the back of an HMICFRS ‘good’ rating on our crime recording, all the performance dashboard is looking good for the first time in a good while.

Residential burglary down 31% Domestic Abuse down 2.8% Criminal Damage down 2.1% Theft down 12.1% Vehicle crime down 16.8% Satisfaction up to 74% (higher for DV and burglary victims). Recruitment on target to get us from 1263 officers in 2018 to 1550 officers in 2023.

There is still plenty to do, and I welcome the Chief’s simple ambition that we need to do what we say we will do and being there when we are needed.

Much of this is down to the hard work of our members. But leadership is key too, and I am enthused to work with a senior leadership now aligning to the values published, and a genuine openness to challenge on your behalf when needed.

As a relatively new Chair – your Chair (after all, you are now my bosses), I feel that despite all the challenges of social media and criticisms out there in policing, it is a good time to be in Northamptonshire Police, working with this leadership team, and the main reason why I will be reviewing my plans which would have seen me leave the Force in the next few weeks. I have growing confidence that this Force will return to its former position as a place to come and work and I want to continue to be a part of that winning team. 6

I hope you are seeing some of the results of the representing, influencing and negotiating we do on behalf of you. Thank you for your queries, your moans, your support and your comments. More communications will come out from us in September, when we will turn our attention to recruitment of new work-based representatives, and widening our representation across the force. These communications will seek to give an even greater understanding of what your Federation does for you.

Stay safe and well during the remainder of the summer, and thank you for your part in all of the issues described

Yours

SAM DOBBS Chair | Northamptonshire Police Federation

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