THE CHAIR ASKS
SH: The covenant’s three areas of focus are physical protection, health and wellbeing, and supporting families. Why do you think these are the most important concerns for officers in England and Wales? AR: The ethos of a Covenant is that you shouldn’t be disadvantaged as a result of your service to society. We have plenty of evidence to prove that police officers and many police staff suffer a range of health disadvantages compared to many other professions. A Covenant can’t solve every challenge overnight, and one advantage we have in these three areas is a decade’s worth of research, data, and staff surveys telling us what works and what doesn’t when it comes to reducing the harmful effects of trauma exposure, sleep, and fatigue. We have done all the work on the Officer & Staff Safety Review, specifically aimed at improving physical protection in terms of equipment, training and legislation.
Over my 30 years, I have hardly ever known officers complain about the toughest aspects of police work. They take this in their stride and many feel very proud that they can turn up again and again to help people in the most awful circumstances. The Covenant must step up to do as much as it possibly can to ensure their commitment doesn’t harm their health, from the minute they join, through service, and into retirement. It doesn’t have to be that way, and I think the Covenant will go a long way to ensuring it won’t be that way.
SH: The Covenant places a legal requirement on the Government to report annually to Parliament on issues relating to police welfare, wellbeing, and support. Does this mean the Government will ensure police and crime commissioners, and chief constables, are equally accountable for officer wellbeing?
AR: The requirement for the Home Secretary to report annually is one of the most significant parts of the Covenant because of the long-term visibility it gives to workplace wellbeing at the highest levels of the service and government. Everyone in policing is so busy, so sometimes our commitment to wellbeing falters or ebbs and flows with changes in leadership style. It’s way too important for this to happen and the Covenant has
the potential to keep this at the top of the agenda forever – irrespective of who is in charge at force and Government levels. We’re already seeing Covenant priorities start to feed into His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) Police Effectiveness, Efficiency and Legitimacy (PEEL) and we should recognise how important a message this sends out to everyone in the service.
SH: The Police Covenant Oversight Board has agreed 11 workstream priorities to be addressed by the Government and the police service. What are the top three priorities to address and why? AR: I can answer this one because Dr Ian Hesketh and I put them forward! We have been working with the NPCC, College of Policing, Home Office and HMICFRS to feed them into the PEEL inspection from April 2023. The first priority is for all forces to achieve the
In all these three areas, and all priorities, we make sure we have support available through the National Wellbeing Service Oscar Kilo, so that we’re not just pointing out what needs doing, we are actually helping people achieve progress.
SH: At the November 2022 board meeting, you informed us about the Blue Light Wellbeing framework self-assessment tool, and discussing with HMICFRS about making it part of the inspection. Can you tell our members more about this and how it will benefit them?
“Everyone in policing is so busy, so sometimes our commitment to wellbeing falters or ebbs and flows with changes in leadership style”
Occupational Health standards, so that there’s no postcode lottery. There is absolutely no point trying to convince your people that you care if there’s an 18- week waiting time for trauma counselling. The standards, led by our interim Chief Medical Officer Professor John Harrison, effectively mandate mental and physical health provision. Secondly, every force has to deliver the Operation Hampshire seven-point plan, whilst making sure we collect better data locally and nationally. This is going really well, ably led by Dave Brewster with huge support from you and Belinda Goodwin in PFEW. If we can’t get the support right when our people get assaulted, we’re fundamentally failing in our duty of care. I passionately believe this sends a message to society that we won’t tolerate abuse, assault and poor criminal justice outcomes for the people who keep us all safe 24/7. Finally, all forces need to demonstrate they have self-assessed against the Blue Light Wellbeing Framework that has been in place for five years.
Many forces are doing really well in these three areas, but everyone needs to be the best. I’m 100% confident we’re getting there, helped by the Covenant.
AR: It’s a whole organisation game plan covering over 100 areas, designed by experts in the field, and importantly, it’s specific to policing. Out of this drops a force plan and real accountability. It’s unique and spells out exactly what a force must pay attention to, but self-assessment will always have inherent limitations, which is why this has been requested this as part of the PEEL inspection from April 2023. For the past five years, we have been continuously nipping and tucking the framework as new evidence emerges, and we run free workshops for forces to share good practice. Forces go onto the Oscar Kilo website and access a digital
system, so it’s easily accessible. Wellbeing is potentially ‘all things to all people’, and to really have an impact, you need to focus your effort, funding, and leadership where it matters most. The framework provides 100% clarity and benefits every individual in policing.
SH: Do you foresee any changes being made to the covenant over the next five years? AR: Definitely. We’ve focused the first 12-18 months on laying the foundations in the key areas that we were already aware needed improving. Now, we’re starting to see new work coming onto the plan, with the start of a family support offer and better support for people leaving. There is a huge amount of work to do here, given it’s new to the service. My belief is that the Covenant will need to find ways of addressing some of the bigger challenges facing our people over the next five years – issues that go beyond the initial list of 11 priorities, such as criminal justice support and dealing with other organisations’ demands, for example. Such is the importance of the Covenant that the NPCC are now establishing a national group to ensure the right people are involved.
23 | POLICE | APRIL 2023
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