THE chairman of South Yorkshire Police Federation said he is looking forward to the National Federation \u201cacting as one and speaking with one voice\u201d.<\/p>\n
Neil Bowles \u2013 who was re-elected to the post this month \u2013 said the independent review into the Federation looks like a \u201cwell-presented, comprehensive document\u201d. He said a special meeting of the Federation\u2019s Joint Branch Board had been called to discuss the report on Friday.<\/p>\n
On Federation finances, Mr Bowles said the training for Police Federation representatives was \u201csecond to none\u201d and that money goes towards ensuring they have the tools to look after members, whether it is an issue of discipline, pensions, health and safety, or equality.<\/p>\n
Mr Bowles added that he had \u201cno worries at all about the proposals around finances\u201d and has previously gone on the record to say that funding should be centralised.<\/p>\n
He said he was pleased to see that that the review took notice of the hard work of local representatives and that it wanted the national Federation to take more notice of their opinions in the future.<\/p>\n
The next step is to study the report and \u201ciron out any anomalies\u201d, said the chairman. For example, the National Council voting procedures currently look \u201ca bit obscure\u201d, he said, with Humberside receiving the same vote-weighting as South Yorkshire Police and West Yorkshire Police.<\/p>\n
\u201cHumberside is half the size of our force and we are half the size of West Yorkshire so how that weighting has been worked out we are not sure.\u201d<\/p>\n