Get to know your Federation reps: Jane Coe

19 March 2021

After five years working in police staff roles, Jane Coe decided to become a police officer and is now 19 years into a successful career.

Jane joined Suffolk Police in August 1997 as a traffic warden before becoming a dispatcher in the control room the following year. She became a police officer in 2002.

“Having worked as support staff for five years, I had some insight into the role of an officer and the interesting and varied role it would be,” Jane said.

Her first posting was as a PC with Ipswich response. Other roles include response sergeant, custody sergeant and Safer Neighbourhood Teams sergeant leading to promotion to response and SNT inspector, and now control room inspector.

Jane became a Federation rep in 2012 and is now the branch’s deputy chair, professional development lead and deputy conduct and performance liaison officer (CAPLO).

“I believe everyone should be treated fairly and given the opportunity to develop and be supported,” said Jane, “The Federation role has given me the opportunity to support and help my colleagues from all over the constabulary.

“It’s a very rewarding role helping and supporting colleagues usually through difficult times in their lives. But it can be very challenging and frustrating with balancing expectations, your time and the final conclusion of any investigation.”

So what does Jane bring to her Fed role?

“I have 19 years’ experience as a police officer in a variety of roles and ranks and the last 12 years as an inspector,” said Jane, who is aiming for re-election at the upcoming Federation elections.

“All of these were in operational roles which helps me understand of the majority of officers I have an interaction with as a rep.

“I have nine years’ experience as Federation rep dealing with numerous discipline cases from low level misconduct to hearings and appeals. I am equality and post-incident procedures (PIP) trained and have supported officers in these areas.

“I’m also experienced in assisting officers in grievance procedures, flexible working and unsatisfactory performance procedures (UPP), together with any general policing queries that are raised to Federation reps.”

She added: “I enjoy the interaction with officers, supporting and guiding them through processes, whatever the outcome. And meeting officers from all over the constabulary who I wouldn’t normally meet in my day job.”

Indeed, Jane says her career highlight as a rep was supporting a dismissed officer through a successful appeal process with a barrister provided by the Federation. “And now seeing the officer being very successful in a new role within the constabulary,” she added.

Jane said that the ongoing Force recruitment process will increase the demand on the Federation’s services.

“This is a good challenge which we accept gladly,” she said, “Another challenge is assessing how life after Covid lockdown will work as working practices have changed over the past year; ensuring we keep the good practices developed but also re-embracing some of the old working models.  Not everything can be done through Teams.”

Jane added that recruitment and retention were challenges facing the Force and policing as a whole.

“Policing now doesn’t appear to be the long-term career it was several years ago,” she said, “This could be linked to pension or pay. There’s been a large amount of negative publicity over the past few years which may have an impact on  recruitment. The Government’s target to increase officers may be a challenge.”