- Conference
- 2010 Police and Justice Service Group Conference
- Date
- 13 October 2010
- Decision
- Carried
This Branch notes that, due to the Edmund Davies effect, many Police Officers are reaching the end of their current careers and retiring on substantial pensions.
These officers are then being re-employed in Police Staff roles immediately after “retiring” with some of the job descriptions being tailored towards ex police officers.
When all police forces are facing efficiency savings which, in turn, can lead to redundancies for police staff it is now, more than ever, important that we call for the practice of police officers retiring on the Friday and starting on the Monday as police staff, to end.
When an officer retires there is no obligation to the police force to keep them in employment. Over the years we have all seen this practice become a “masonic handshake” as opposed to a proper recruiting process due the fact that the police force has not put in place any succession planning for when the officer retires.
This course of action is:
•Patently unfair with interviews being biased in the retired officers favour.
And
•Potentially discriminatory, with the majority of these officers being Married White Males aged 50-55.
Therefore, we call upon the Service Group Executive (SGE) to:
1.Condemn this practice and issue a statement showing our national opposition.
2.Lobby the Home Office, Scottish Government and Welsh Assembly to have forces cease this practice immediately.
3.Produce guidelines which can form the basis of a local agreement on an open and transparent equality proofed recruitment policy for Police Staff.