The Federation has reaffirmed its commitment to working more closely with police support associations for the benefit of members.

The National Police Association of Strategic Leaders (PASL) was formed with PFEW and the blessing of the Home Office three years ago to bring together the full spectrum of police faith, race, disability, sexuality and gender groups to share their unique perspectives and work collectively.

Meetings take place quarterly at our headquarters in Leatherhead, and on Wednesday PASL members joined National Chair John Apter in signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU), formalising and further strengthening those links.

Speaking afterwards, Mr Apter said: "I'm really proud that today the Police Association of Strategic Leads and the Police Federation of England Wales have signed a Memorandum of Understanding about how we can work better together. Support groups from across policing are working with the Police Federation to make sure that the voices of all of our members across all areas of policing are heard.

"I don't want this just to be a talking shop. I want it to have a tangible outcome I want it to be a real benefit to those people who look to these support groups and I want them to understand that the Police Federation are there for them. We are working with your supportive leaders to make sure that your voice is heard at every level within policing.”

The memorandum reiterates PFEW and PASL’s commitment to eliminating discrimination in all its forms and commits to working together to improve equality for all police officers in England and Wales. It promises to hold meetings at national level to discuss matters of mutual concern, and invite representatives to attend respective national conferences.

PASL also commits to providing a specialist support to PFEW when representing any officer member of their respective Association.

Javid Rana of the Association of Muslim Police (AMP) called the signing of the MOU “ground-breaking and historic”. He added: “Being a member of PASL gives us access on a national level to stakeholders we need to work with, and everyone brings a huge amount to the table in terms of their shared and lived experiences. The MOU will make a huge impact on diversity in policing.”

Daniel Morris from the Jewish Police Association (JPA) said: “This is an opportunity for us nationally to put our opinions forward to the Federation and possibly the Home Office. Being a member of the PASL group gives an opportunity also to network with other police support associations.”

And Julia Jaeger, on behalf of the British Association of Women Police (BAWP), agreed that: “It gives the opportunity to network and share examples of best practice and common threads to us and to other organisations – also because gender runs is represented by all the other staff associations and we’ve already developed a gender agenda with the Home Office, I think that helps the other staff associations to develop their aims and objectives. I’ve learnt a lot more about other groups by attending these meetings.”

PFEW national board member, Zac Mader, who chairs the PASL meetings, is hopeful that the group will continue to grow in strength and confidence, with partnerships replicated at the local level in addition to nationally.

He commented: “When the PASL members came together three years ago, it was the first time we had been able to get all the associations together in one room working for a common purpose. Since then we’ve laid the foundations for closer working and understanding, which is important because the police officers PASL groups speak for are also PFEW’s members.

“The signing of the MOU this week is another significant milestone in the groups evolution. I hope we can get to the point eventually where if one group is having an issue, that’s everybody’s issue, because we can achieve more by working together.”

The following groups are members of PASL:

• Police Federation of England and Wales
• National Black Police Association
• National Association of Muslim Police
• Christian Police Association
• Jewish Police Association
• Disabled Police Association
• National Police Autism Association
• National LGBT Police Network
• National Trans Police Association
• British Association of Women in Policing
• Chinese and South East Asian Police Association
• West Midlands Sikh Police Association
• Gypsy Roma Traveller Police Association
• Police Pagan Association
• National Association of Chaplains to the Police

Hear the reaction from National Chair John Apter: