- Conference
- Police Staff Conference 2004
- Date
- 9 February 2004
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
The Police Staff membership has a long history of under investment by Police Management. Workplace learning and training opportunities to Police Staff has never been seen as a priority. It is often viewed as unnecessary by some employers or treated in a slipshod and half-hearted manner by others, who undervalue Police Staff and their role in the Police Service.
Police Staff and Police Officers are all part of the same police family and need to be treated in the same way. Advantages should not be doled out to one group to the disadvantage of the other. Police Staff are integral to the operation of the police service and without them and their efforts the progress made by the service in recent years would seem pretty sick.
Currently there are few opportunities for career progression for Police Staff and if we are to retain the best we have to train like the best and offer good facilities. Forces operate singly and there is little countrywide corporacy in Police Staff training. It works on a “pick and mix” basis and staff lost to one force will often be lost to the service as a whole, or expensively retained by any other force.
We call upon Conference to recognise that by and large our police managers regard us in the hierarchy as second class citizens and therefore instruct our Service Group Executive to campaign on:
1)wider access to educational training opportunities through vocational training programmes with recognised certification for police staff;
2)ensure that paid release is given by all employers to their staff;
3)work with all employers to develop career paths for those joining as members as police staff;
4)work with all employers to develop workplace learning programmes specifically aimed at police staff;
5)make staff aware of the training that is available;
6)encourage staff to take up the available training to become workplace learner representatives;
7)encourage staff to understand the importance of Personal Development Plans and to ensure that they are used as a serious and effective aid to their career development;
8)work towards a PSC agreement on workplace learning.