Paul Squire is new Essex Police Federation Secretary

ESSEX Police Federation has welcomed Paul Squire as the body’s new Secretary. Paul takes over the role from Phil Suarez, who is retiring from policing.

Click here/see below for an interview with Paul where he outlines how he will be helping to look after the welfare of officers, challenge the force when needed and how he encourages officers to vote at the upcoming Police Federation elections. 

How did you get into Federation work?

Like many fed reps, a number of years ago I needed help, and after being given that help I decided I wanted to be able to help other officers in trouble. I’ve been on the front line for 21 years and needed a change of focus, so it was time to help somebody else other than the public.

Tell us more about your career.

My role was predominantly traffic and I transferred over to Essex from Hertfordshire after 12 years. From there I ended up in custody for a couple of years, then got promoted. For the past five years, I’ve been an inspector on LPT, response and patrol.

What are your key roles as Secretary?   

One of the massive jobs is to deal with pension medical appeals. I’ve got about half a dozen of those running. And I have to keep run the office, make sure the enquiries are done, that all of the extra member services are dealt with efficiently and effectively, and being a go-between; getting the information out to officers when they need it.

How is the current difficult policing environment affecting your members?

Officers are finding themselves in trouble. They are overstretched and exhausted and they are making mistakes – which is totally understandable. I think we are beginning to slowly move towards a culture of learning rather than telling them off, but that is slow and in the meantime those officers need help and that is what I aim to do.

What are the main challenges facing the Federation?

We need to get the message out to everybody in the force that they need to vote in the upcoming Federation elections for who they think is going to make a good representative. I do have a concern over the numbers voting. We want proper input from across the organisation, from BME officers, female officers, and others, so we can become properly representative.

How are you going to challenge the force on behalf of your colleagues, in this new role?

My big thing is equality, health and welfare. I just need to keep making sure that the force has reasonable sickness policies and that officers aren’t being taken to task unnecessarily. And each time I see that they are I will make sure that it’s drawn to the attention of chief officers that there are better ways of doing things, improving the system for the future.