- Conference
- 2024 Police, Probation and CAFCASS Conference
- Date
- 20 June 2024
- Decision
- Carried
Last year’s conference was held in Scotland. The 10th anniversary of the formation of Police Scotland.
It was on 1st April 2013, that all 8 Scottish police forces merged to form a single force, Police Scotland.
This was not without problems and the hard work and determination of the eight individual police forces but the individual UNISON Branches who also merged to form UNISON Police Staff Scotland.
The work undertaken by UNISON Police Staff Scotland to merge 8 different sets of terms and conditions cannot be underestimated and should be rightly praised.
The amalgamation of Police Forces allowed for a sharing of resources and cost savings across
Scotland but the pressure on the Policing Budget continues in Scotland. This has seen threats to members’ jobs in Scotland with a recruitment freeze and VR/VER scheme introduced to reduce staff even further with promises that tasks would be stopped rather than passed on to the staff remaining and that police officers would not be used to backfill any of these posts. The proof will be in the proverbial pudding and any further reductions cannot be accepted or sustained.
The Scottish Government have now introduced a ‘Blue Light Collaboration’ project and there can be no doubt that the plan is to reduce costs further by merging shared functions such as control rooms, HR depts, Fleet and back office functions. This will inevitably lead to job losses.
The success of merging 8 police forces and the ongoing attempt to merge other functions into one has not and will not go unrecognised. Other areas of the UK will be looking to see where a similar process of integrating services can be implemented and that puts more of our members at risk.
The numbers of police officers have become a political football but we need the UK government and the devolved administrations to recognise that police forces require a balanced workforce and increasing police numbers alone is not the solution.
Conference calls on the SGE
1)To campaign for all UK police forces to recognise the importance of police staff in a balanced workforce
2. To robustly challenge the merging of police forces and sharing of resources across organisations where the clear aim of any organisational restructure is cost-cutting through job losses.