Our South Yorkshire team at conference

SOUTH Yorkshire Police Federation representatives travelled to Bournemouth this week for the Police Federation of England and Wales’ annual conference.

They joined delegates from across the country to hear sessions on officer assaults, pursuit driving, the challenges of an older workforce and the future of women in policing.

They also saw Vice-Chairman Zuleika Payne pick up the Women in Policing award.

Home Secretary Theresa May and Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham both addressed conference on the first day.

Chairman Neil Bowles said he wanted to see more audience interaction at future Police Federation conferences.

He said: “We had a very important session on ageing the workforce and how that affects disability and equality within the workforce and yet it was all just frontloaded. It was all good information, but surely, we’ve got 1,500 reps here who’ve got experience, got questions. We should have some sort of interaction, question and answering debate.

“Hopefully the future conferences will go back to that sort of debate of the normal representatives that we’ve got in the workplace, coming here essentially to discuss things rather than just frontloaded information.”