- Conference
- 2015 Police & Justice Service Group Conference
- Date
- 1 January 2015
- Decision
- Carried
Conference welcomes all initiatives to improve the health and wellbeing of our members, however there are concerns that need addressing as part of these initiatives namely:
1) Staff are unable to take the refreshment breaks they are entitled to during working hours.
2) Staff are not being paid for overtime worked and pressure is being put on them to take this as time off at a later date.
3) Staff are being forced onto shift patterns in order to meet budget shortfalls, patterns that do not necessarily aid the work/life balance of our members and patterns that also lead to a reduction in income.
4) Scant consideration is given to our members caring responsibilities whether it be for children or other dependants.
Despite the reducing workforce there are ever increasing expectations from government and the public to maintain service delivery and our members are under continuous pressure to deliver the same level of performance with significantly reduced resources.
The first steps to improving health and wellbeing must be to look at the management of the workplace, how work is organised and how staff are supported.
Conference notes with concern that since the release of the UNISON police staff stress survey in 2014, the situation has worsened. In that survey, increased workload, uncertainty about job security, concerns about the cost of the living and lack of support from management were highlighted as major concerns.
Whilst we welcome the work already done by some of our employers conference calls upon the Service Group Executive to:
a) Conduct a survey of branches to ascertain what policies/procedures are in place to address health and wellbeing and to promote to branches areas of good practice.
b) Seek to ensure that employers adopt the areas of good practice identified and with branch involvement introduce procedures to promote health and wellbeing that fully support our members.
c) seek to ensure that the issues raised in the UNISON police staff stress survey are addressed in the work of the Wellbeing project;
d) work with the College of Policing and all other appropriate bodies to seek to improve occupational health provision for police staff in England and Wales;
e) take any opportunity presented by the Police Scotland staff survey 2015 to enter into discussions on the similar issues affecting police staff in Scotland.