- Conference
- 2021 Police and Justice Conference
- Date
- 21 June 2021
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that the work of our police staff members continues to be under-reported by the media, poorly understood by the general-public and rarely mentioned by politicians when speaking on policing in Parliament.
Conference further notes that this is despite the fact that:
1)There are 83,500 police staff working for forces in England and Wales, including Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs).
2)Police staff make up 39% of total policing strength across the two nations – in a few forces police staff comprise half the workforce.
3)Police staff carry out specialist operational, operational support and organisational support roles for police forces, regional organised crime units and counter terrorism units without which policing would simply not be able to operate.
Conference therefore believes that UNISON should launch a long-term campaign to raise the profile of police staff and the contribution that our members make to effective policing in England, Scotland and Wales. The aim of the campaign should be to improve awareness in the general public, media, politicians, and in UNISON more widely, of the role our members carry out in policing today.
Conference therefore calls on the Service Group Executive to:
a)Devise and launch a UNISON campaign for police staff similar in scope and reach to existing UNISON campaigns such as the One Team campaign in health, Stars in Our Schools in education and the Local Service Champions in local government;
b)Focus the campaign on the following main audiences:
i)Our police staff members – reminding them that we understand their roles, the pressure that they are under and that we are here for them when they need us;
ii)Potential police staff members – promoting UNISON as the union that understands policing and that we can be there when they need us;
iii)UNISON’s membership in general – to help members in other service groups to understand the work that police staff undertake;
iv)The general public – who may think that policing is just about police officers, but who we need on our side to help protect the police services our members provide;
v)Politicians – who make decisions which affect our members, but often without understanding exactly what police staff do;
vi)Police employers – to remind them that policing cannot be successful without motivated, valued and supported police staff.
c)Plan a long-term, strategic and coordinated campaign, in order to keep it agile, relevant, fresh and interesting, and able to form the platform for campaigning on funding, cuts, outsourcing etc.