Christmas message from Sam Dobbs and the team

24 December 2025

Dear Member/Colleague,

With Christmas here, I wanted to write on behalf of us all in the Federation Office – Amanda, Alan, Charlotte, Nicola, Stuart, and me – to wish you all the best for a peaceful and joyful festive season.

If you are working, we hope that you remain safe and that the demand queues are kind as you keep the county safe and protected, and that you get quality time with your family and loved ones later. If you are fortunate to be off, do take the time to rest and enjoy festivities.

This has been a tough and demanding year for policing and the Force – in fact for the police service in general. Some of the bad news stories are self-inflicted, and we reel at reading about the misconduct hearings which Regulations require to be published. Trust and confidence in policing has taken a battering and that affects all of us in the force whether at work or as members of the public.

Through the year, we and your reps have done our best to work for you, negotiating and influencing decisions which affect you. We hope we are a mutually trusted voice in debates, effective in the Hearing Rooms of misconduct, performance, fairness and Regulation 13, in securing top-notch legal advice and helping members through the most difficult periods in their careers, from financial crises through to healthcare problems.

2025 was the first year since 2001 when we lost a colleague who died in the execution of duty, and we continue to support the family and colleagues of PC Faizaan Najeeb. We look forward to honouring Fuzz further at a Civic Service in his memory, to be announced in the New Year.

One of the other main areas of representing you has been (alongside the Superintendents’ Association) to lobby the Chief Constable in relation to the now-accepted and recognised issues of demand and staffing. We are subsequently well-engaged with the work he commissioned as things could not continue as they were, with the impact this has on members.

Despite this context and challenge, you have done what policing does best – making things work and doing your best for the public and each other. We have seen an absolute determination on the part of the Demand Project team to improve things, and this will mean some quite radical change in 2026. In fact, we hope it does.

At the Force’s Awards ceremony last week, when an array of Chief Constable’s Commendations and Excellence Awards were presented in two sittings, I commented on how it was good to turn the volume down on the policing bad news and turn it up on story after story of pride-inducing, gulp-worthy good work – courage, bravery, selfless dedication, lifesaving, leadership, creativity, problem-solving, crime-busting, caring and centuries’ worth of service to Northamptonshire.

Hope

Coupled with the latest updates on the Demand work, and what we see daily on the morning reports and on station visits, I drove home quite elated and with energised hope. In the summer on a station visit, I remember a student officer looking at me at Weston Favell and saying ‘My goodness – you still have hope, don’t you?’ And I do – and I ask you to have hope too.

Christmas and New Year bring hope and the opportunity for renewed hope. We are living in strange times, with worrying headlines and where few things surprise us in their complexity and sometimes absurdity. In all that complexity, and despite whatever is thrown at us, police officers turn up for work and do their best to follow their vocation of public service, sometimes at personal cost.

So my hope and prayer this Christmas in its complexity and challenge is that we all find some rest, some quality time with loved ones and the opportunity to embrace the spirit of the season by sharing and extending goodwill and bringing light to the darkened places in our community.

Please do maintain hope in the challenges facing us all, be gentle to yourselves and colleagues, and remember there is a Federation on-call colleague available 24/7 over Christmas via the on-call number (07890 045999), if you need us.

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Sam Dobbs (Chair)