- Conference
- 2009 Police Staff Service Group Conference
- Date
- 25 June 2009
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
‘Our members who find themselves the subject of Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) investigations deserve the best representation possible. The training provided by UNISON is sufficient for the provision of basic skills for the purposes of representation in a discipline process. For Staff who may find themselves the subject of a Professional Standards Interview where the interviewers are Police Officers used to dealing with criminal matters, it is important to provide Stewards and Representatives with the necessary skills to provide them with the best chance of advising and supporting members in this type of scenario.
Police Staff are in a unique position when it comes to these matters, as the employer is the Police. It is often Detectives who conduct interviews and in doing so they utilise their policing skills. Reps often find themselves in a difficult situation having had no experience or training in that type of scenario.
To give our members the best possible representation, it is clear that some specific training needs to be available to Police Staff Stewards, which will equip them with appropriate skills necessary to enable them to deal with this type of process.
In achieving this, Conference calls upon the SGE to:
Liaise with the Police Federation with regard to sharing good practice and training opportunities
Scope the feasibility of providing dedicated national training to Police Staff Stewards and report the findings at or before 2010 Police Staff Conference or its equivalent
Collate information from branches with regard to disciplinary hearings and provide a written report on a regular basis of those findings in a way that maintains confidentiality.’