PHIL Suarez is the new Secretary of Essex Police Federation.<\/p>\n
He takes over from the retiring Monty Montgomery.<\/p>\n
Here, he answers questions about coping with police cuts, holding the force to account and rising stress levels.<\/p>\n
Click\u00a0here<\/a>\/see below for the full interview.<\/p>\n What are the main issues for your members at the moment?<\/strong><\/p>\n There are many. Obviously the budget cuts that have come about, and that leads into our #CutsHaveConsequences campaign.\u00a0But police officer numbers are ever decreasing. I can remember the times, 2010\/2011 when we were up to almost 3,500 police officers, all of a sudden we\u2019re now down, heading to 2,600, we\u2019re probably going to head further south than that. It\u2019s what we can continue to deliver as a service to the people of Essex, with those ever diminishing numbers.<\/p>\n As Secretary what can you do about those demands and strains put on your officers?<\/strong><\/p>\n The Secretary\u2019s role is a joint role, so also have to have my Treasurer\u2019s hat on. With my Secretary\u2019s head on that is really about negotiations with the force, making sure we have compliance with Police Regulations, so as budgets get tighter more is put upon our members. It\u2019s holding the force to account where they need to be challenged over things like short notice duty changes, and just making sure that our members are represented and their interests are looked after.<\/p>\n Do you think you\u2019re going to be busier than ever over coming weeks, months and years with decreasing numbers and increasing demand?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, because I think the more you put on your workforce, stress levels rise. Another key area of my work is that I deal with medical issues, whether that be medical retirement, managing sickness, working alongside the force over those sort of issues. There are concerns about rising stress levels, morale in the police service, so it\u2019s how we can work with the organisation and make sure our people are looked after.<\/p>\n What\u2019s your take on what\u2019s happening about pensions?<\/strong><\/p>\n I completely get that officers are upset and concerned about their pension. Officers will think they had a kind of deal with the Government if that\u2019s what you want to call it, and they had expectations around what should happen. Personally I\u2019d have liked to have seen any new scheme affect new members joining only, but we don\u2019t have negotiation rights with pensions, it is all about consultation. I think the Government would have had, quite happily, police officers working until they\u2019re 67. It actually ended up being 60 and you can have it actuarially reduced to 55. So I think we achieved a really good deal compared to other public sector workers.<\/p>\n I have every respect for officers who are taking part in the pension challenge. If they are successful and they do recoup monies then absolutely fair enough, you\u2019ve just got to look at yourself as an individual. We\u2019d always say to people, \u2018seek financial advice before you make any decisions\u2019. Whatever, the police pensions does remain a really good scheme, so I would think twice for anybody who\u2019s thinking about leaving the new police pension scheme, you\u2019ve really got to go and seek financial advice to work out what\u2019s best for you and your family.<\/p>\n Why did you want this job? Why did you want this role?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m very much about fairness, whatever your background might be, making sure that our people are well looked after, and I think that\u2019s what I want to do moving forward, just try and do the best job I possibly can and make sure our people are well represented. This particular role is going to allow me to drive forward some of the work that I\u2019d already started around sickness management and flexible working. I will have the ability to give myself fully to that kind of role. I\u2019m under no illusion of the tricky nature of what lies ahead.<\/p>\n Tell us something we wouldn\u2019t know about you.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m a very big Strictly Come Dancing fan. Saturday night I\u2019d think you\u2019d quite often find me in front of the telly watching. I haven\u2019t ever really partaken in dancing particularly, although I have been to see it filmed a couple of times. My wife\u2019s parents really were very good ballroom dancers in their younger years, and I think with the daily pressures of life that we all experience it\u2019s actually a bit of old fashioned family fun. You can watch it with the kids and everybody enjoys it, and it\u2019s all about the glitz and nice outfits and everything else around it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PHIL Suarez is the new Secretary of Essex Police Federation. He takes over from the retiring Monty Montgomery. Here, he answers questions about coping with police cuts, holding the force\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2512,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2511"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2511"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2525,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2511\/revisions\/2525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}