THE CHAIR ASKS


THE CHAIR ASKS


This month, John Apter, National Chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales is in conversation with Martin Hewitt, Chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council


1: What the NPCC does and its role in making policing more consistent


John Apter (JA): Colleagues might not know what the National Police Chiefs’ Council is or what your role is. Can you explain for us what you do and what the NPCC does?


Martin Hewitt (MH): The NPCC is the body that represents all chief police officers and assistant chief officers across the UK. I always say we do three things. The first thing is coordinating – it’s trying to make sure we are operating in a formal sense like we have during Covid. We also informally coordinate the work of the forces – one of the great things about police services is they are broken up and every force works in its own area but a downside of that is it’s hard to get consistency. Lastly, communication. You’ll hear me talk on behalf of the chief officers. We also have chief officers who are the leads for different aspects of policing. I’ve no power to tell those Chief Constables what to do, so it’s about getting them into a place where in the interest of service we can move forward.


JA: Officers really do scratch their heads and question why something good that is happening in their Force isn’t replicated in another. Should consistency play more of a part within policing?


MH: We would all accept that policing a village in North Wales is very different from policing the middle of Birmingham in relation to the kind of challenges and the resources you’ve got. There is always going to be that flexibility. At the same time, we must try to be as consistent as we possibly can. The Covid scenario has shown we’ve managed to achieve enormous amounts of consistency through guidance.


2: How we can ensure we are looking after our people


JA: Officer safety is a real passion of mine. I’m campaigning for better officer safety training, more access to Taser among other things. You led the NPCC review into officer safety and I think there were more than 40,000 responses from officers and staff and volunteers. What will this officer safety review mean to them?


MH: This is this is one of the most important things that I’ve done in the job and one of which I’m most proud. It began after we saw a rise in assaults on officers last summer. It felt to me we needed to do a thorough review from end to end. How do we look after our officers and staff? How do we how do we train and equip them? How do we deploy them? Inevitably, people will get assaulted as that is the nature of the job we do. When that happens, are we supporting them effectively, and is the criminal justice system supporting them? I set that in train last September and it


was incredible to get 40,000 responses. The 28 recommendations were agreed by Chief Constables and we were ready to publish in the middle of March when Covid came along. That didn’t mean the work couldn’t start. We had various chief officers who led on self-defence, arrest and restraint, on Taser and various other aspects. Kent Police Chief Constable Alan Pughsley is now our Officer Safety Lead and working directly with me. We want to see a difference made


around equipment and some legislative push around training. The finding from the survey that was the most disappointing to me was the variation in training. So work is ongoing to create one standard curriculum that defines precisely the number of hours of contact time between any officer and


“ We have got to make sure that people have got the right training, and are deployed in the right way with the right kit”


their trainers. I also think this links into the Police Covenant as well. We need to make sure we are looking


after our people. We do a job that is dangerous. There are times where our folks who are going out there and going towards difficult issues are going to come to harm. But we have got to make sure as employers that people know what they need to do, have got the right training, and are deployed in the right way with the right kit.


Continued on next page >>>


OCTOBER 2020 | POLICE | 11


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