OVERWORKED police officers need protected time during their working day for professional learning, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.<\/p>\n
The Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) is campaigning for forces to undergo an \u201corganisational culture change\u201d to allow officers to take Protected Learning Time (PLT), which it says is key to professional development and an investment in officers and teams.<\/p>\n
PFEW found that many forces were using the negative term \u201cabstracted from duty\u201d when referring to an officer using some of their shift time to undertake vital learning.<\/p>\n
South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent agreed that PLT was a priority, saying: \u201cThis is really important. We need to develop the right officers. There are too many officers who have got real ability and real potential who say, \u2018I haven\u2019t got the time for training. I\u2019m doing 40, 50, 60 hours a week already\u2019. So we need to give them protected time.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso, with the National Police Promotion Framework (NPPF) process, there is a real expectation that officers will do a lot of work at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf people want to get promoted, there\u2019s an expectation that sacrifices have to be made. But when they\u2019re doing their 50-odd hours a week and they\u2019re working overtime that\u2019s forced on them, they\u2019re absolutely knackered. They don\u2019t want to be turning their laptop on when they get home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is some protected time already but it\u2019s very limited. It needs to be much wider, so officers can actually do their job properly. We are concerned that there could be some officers who don\u2019t make the promotion portfolio because they just don\u2019t have time to complete it.\u201d<\/p>\n