A NEW national standard for uniform that promises to strike a balance between professional image and freedom of expression has been set up.<\/p>\n
The guidance, published this month, addresses the issue of body art after it emerged some forces had automatic bans on police officers with tattoos.\u00a0Hundreds of Federation members took part in a survey last year about the inconsistent approach to tattoos across forces, and variable dress codes.<\/p>\n
<\/em><\/p>\n Former Police Federation of England and Wales Interim National Board member Victoria Martin, who led on the work, said: \u201cWe need to reflect the communities we serve and the fact that we are a modern police service.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a lot of passionate feedback from our members on this issue, demonstrating that some force dress policies are very out-dated, so we set about gathering the evidence we needed to push for a new national standard.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the biggest issues we faced is the way some forces view officers and potential new recruits with tattoos – some forces will not accept a person with a tattoo that cannot be covered by uniform.<\/p>\n \u201cThis approach is significantly restricting the pool of potential talent, as one in five 18-29 year-olds has a tattoo. In 30-39 year-olds it\u2019s one in four, while according to our survey 48% of officers have a tattoo.<\/p>\n \u201cJust as important is the fact that it shouldn\u2019t be mandatory for officers with tattoos to wear long-sleeved tops, particularly during the summer when they have to wear a lot of kit. It is a health and safety issue.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesman from the College of Policing, which developed the guidance, said: \u201cThe national guidance will help forces across England and Wales to take a consistent approach to appearance standards for officers and staff.<\/p>\n “The document aims to provide a clear and comprehensive guidance on appearance to present a professional image, achieve and maintain standards and also allow for a level of self-expression.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A NEW national standard for uniform that promises to strike a balance between professional image and freedom of expression has been set up. The guidance, published this month, addresses the\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3248,"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\/3733"}],"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=3733"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3737,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733\/revisions\/3737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}