- Conference
- 2015 Police & Justice Service Group Conference
- Date
- 1 January 2015
- Decision
- Carried
Conference over recent years Police Staff numbers have declined drastically with the impact of the Austerity measures imposed by the Government. Since 2010 nearly 19% of the workforce has been cut- that equates to over 15,000 Police Staff and yet the work load has not reduced. It means less staff doing more work for the same pay in the same hours.
As job security is constantly under threat, Regionalisation is around every corner and everyday job pressures continue to be at the forefront of our world more and more Police Staff are feeling the ongoing pressure to perform well, hit ever increasing targets and deadlines with the fear of they may be next in line to go.
Police Staff are facing daily changes to working practices in the bid to stream line processes or reduce internal and external costs with little or no thought on extra training or longer term consequences by management – as long as the job is done. This adds extra pressure onto staff that are already working to full capacity and above with little or no time for them to actually read or take on-board new instructions.
Many control rooms across our Police Branches are facing greater pressure than ever. They are dealing with an already stressful job with limited numbers of staff, and this has an effect on their health and well-being. The result of this pressure and resulting stress means that increasing numbers of members are being absent from work with work related stress or issues with existing health conditions which are exacerbated by the stress they have been placed under. This unfortunately compounds the stress and pressure on members of staff who are already under a great deal of stress in attempting to cover for those who are off because they are unwell.
Therefore we ask the Service Group Executive to:
1) Work with National and Regional Health and Safety Committee and the Wellbeing project on the findings of the 2014 Unison Police Staff Survey;
2) Work with the College of Policing to improve the access and provision of occupational health for Police staff – especially trained stress Counsellors;
3) Work with the TUC to develop dedicated Stress in the workplace training packages for Stewards.
4) Use the details from the Stress survey to highlight how austerity is having an impact on the health, safety and well-being of our members;
5) Survey control room/contact centre staff on the impact of stress with a short online survey
6) Highlight how stress is affecting staff in control rooms/contact centres;
7) Mount a campaign on how stress is affecting our members and the detrimental effect it is having on our members health and private lives;
8) Work with the College of Policing to seek to ensure that the College Wellbeing Project addresses stress in control rooms
9) Work with Police Scotland to seek to ensure that a similar wellbeing project is extended to Scotland.