Put officer health and wellbeing first, says Federation

IF the nation is to preserve the health and welfare of its society, it must preserve the health and welfare of its police officers, the South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair has warned.

Zuleika Payne was speaking after the Police Federation of England and Wales Annual Conference this week, the theme of which was Protect The Protectors.

The conference heard from Holly Lynch MP who has been campaigning for better protection for police officers in law, resourcing and equipment.

Zuleika said: “As Holly Lynch said yesterday, ‘We come up with the law and the legislation, we expect you to act as law enforcers. We have got to protect you’.

“And that protection doesn’t just come from the carriage of our personal protective equipment; it’s also about the work/life balance of our officers, who are working under pressure and having to make snap decisions with what they are presented with, and that also over laps into the pursuits bill as well.

“The public have a legitimate expectation that we will protect and serve, but we have got to be able to equip our officers and develop the right legislation in order to facilitate them doing that.”

South Yorkshire Police officers are owed 2,252 days off after having rest days cancelled, figures released last month showed, and officers are suffering as a result, Zuleika said.

She added: “Government spin suggests that falling officer numbers has not been of a detriment to anybody, that we’re still managing to service deliver.

“But then when you couple that with the fact that officers are owed so much time off, the only reason we’ve been able to maintain the service delivery is because of the good will of police officers, because so much else has been taken away from us.

“In order to maintain the welfare of society and the state, we need to maintain the welfare of our police officers. There is so much damage. Not only have we got to repair that damage but we’ve also then got to look at it in a preventative capacity as well.

“Officers are reluctant to take sick leave, they show consideration for their colleagues who they know will be absorbing more work, but the reasons why officers are suffering so much is because of the reduction in officer numbers and the fact that the work has never reduced.

“Actually the workloads have increased, the numbers have shrunk, the widening of that gap means we are not in a good place.”