Welcoming Special Constables to the Federation is great news

22 February 2021

Special Constables deserve to be better protected going about their role – protections joining the Police Federation will provide.

The Police Covenant – due to be come into being later this year – will allow Special Constables to join the Federation giving them the same rights as their warranted colleagues.

It finally closes the loop hole on whether they should be able to join their local Federation after the PFEW voted to let them into the organisation a decade or so ago.

That could only happen with the Government’s permission which will be granted through Legislation.

The legislation is also promising to better legally protect police drivers [and recognise the training they have] and to continually ensure sentences for those who attack police officers match the seriousness of the crime.

“It’s very good news,” Essex Federation Chair Laura Heggie said.

“I am personally invested in Special Constables and I have a good working relationship with our Special Constable command team, and I think it’s only right that they are protected now.

“They’re volunteers, they give up their time to come and assist us and without them, it would make our job a lot harder.

“I’ve been doing some work in the last couple of months about putting in place the group insurance for our Special Constables so they can also join it.

“What’s often forgotten is that Special Constables come in, and if they get injured during the course of their duty and they then have to end up going off sick, then there’s a chance that they won’t be able to go and do their normal day job which pays their mortgage,” she said.

It can be especially difficult for police staff members who are also specials, Laura explained.

“Should they ever be accused of being in breach of the standards of professional behaviour and they end up going to a misconduct hearing and they’re dismissed as a Special, they lose their staff role as well,” she said.

“I look at that and think you’re risking your day job, the thing that pays your mortgage, so it’s so good we can offer them the protection of the Federation and the insurance which will give them that much needed but expensive legal representation.

“Money doesn’t solve everything, but it will hopefully help.”

The potential change in how police drivers are treated in law will also be of huge benefit to those officers having to make split second decisions when in pursuit, Laura added.

“We undergo weeks of extensive training in order to carry out driving under response conditions, and emergency conditions and that’s an on-going skill that has to be maintained,” she said.

“We’re under constant scrutiny and monitoring, refresher training, further assessments. So, it’s right that there should be some sort of acknowledgement to not only the training that officers have received but also the fact that response driving is risky.

“It’s being able to adapt and deal with what’s happening in front of you. And you can’t always understand or rationalise what a member of the public will do because a lot of people panic when the blue lights and sirens are going.

“When that happens, sadly, there may be accidents.

“So, it’s wrong that officers are currently judged at the same level as a member of the public that hasn’t undergone that additional training, so this change would be good and long overdue.”