Collaboration of forces not always a success, says Essex Police Federation

18 August 2020

Collaborating with neighbouring forces can be a frustrating experience for all concerned, Essex Police Federation says.

When it works well, working closely with other forces can help reduce crime and provide a better service for the public, a recent HMICFRS report said.

However, inspectors concluded that too often collaborations fail, leading to more costs and inefficiencies.

Essex officers already work closely with their Kent counterparts and are part of a seven force strong collaborative working group with other forces in the South East and Home Counties.

While they have been some positives, it has seen an end to some services valued by Essex officers, Federation Chair Laura Heggie said.

“It’s difficult because we collaborate with Kent, but we’re also part of the seven force collaboration which is Herts, Beds, Cambs, Norfolk and Suffolk, ourselves and Kent.

“It’s been difficult. In some of the work I’ve been doing around occupational health, each occupational health department from each force for what you would expect to be a standard procedure does something different.

“That might be around recruitment, their AFO, or their colour-vision testing,” she said.

“Every single force is doing it differently, but we’ve got a standard requirement. Unfortunately, for a lot of the forces that’s the way they’ve always done it, so that’s the way they’re continuing.

“It’s been quite reassuring in Essex with the work which has been done about colour-vision in particular for Taser officers that they have done their research this time and they have invested the money that they needed to in order to ensure that Essex is going to comply to almost the gold standard.

“That has to be the best for officers, especially if they’re involved in an incident.”

Financial cuts have seen the end to Essex’s School of Excellence for driving, Laura added.

“What’s probably the most frustrating thing to watch over the years has been the demise of our Driving school, for Essex we used to have a School of Excellence for our driving. With officers coming to us from other forces to complete their training.

“We don’t have that anymore. With our firearms training, we used to have numerous ranges that we had access to. Many times now firearms officers have to travel out of the force area in order to complete that training. Public Order training venues are being reduced meaning a lot more traveling to and from counties.

“That time spent travelling is time that they’re not training. I’m sure it can’t be a cost effective way to do things either in actual expense or officers hours. So, I feel like in some ways we seem to have lost more than we’ve gained necessarily, by collaboration, which is sad.

“There are some things that work well, but I’d say they’re in the minority, which is a shame.”