LOOKBACK


A VERY SPECIAL LOOKBACK:


Special Constabulary Lead Nicky Ryan looks back at 12 months of PFEW membership for special constables


On 28 June 2022, after 10 years of Police Federation campaigning, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act let special constables become federation members, allowing them the same support and legal assistance as their full-time colleagues. PFEW spent many months before the Bill sailed through Parliament and became enshrined in law preparing behind the scenes, getting everything in order to represent and welcome special constables to PFEW as soon as possible. One of the first steps was creating a ‘Know Your Rights’ document that is currently on the PFEW website. Special constable regulations are


42 | POLICE | OCTOBER | 2023


covered by a number of different documents and this document pulled all of the pieces of regulations together to make it as easy as possible for everyone to


Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), Citizens in Policing (CiP) networks and the NPCC Special Constabulary workstream to spread the word on our behalf.


“This was more difficult than it should have been as forces were unwilling to share special constabulary information with PFEW.”


be aware of their entitlements. Upon the passing of the Bill, we had


to contact all specials within 30 days of legislation enactment. This was more difficult than it should have been as forces were unwilling to share Special Constabulary information with PFEW. We were dependent upon the National


This, alongside the tireless work by the federation through the PFEW Communications Department, website information, messages on duty management platforms such as


Chiefs net and Duty Sheet over the past 12 months, means we now represent more than 44 per cent of special constables in Home Office forces across England and Wales.


PFEW reps have done a fantastic job of supporting specials through misconduct proceedings, and through post incident


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