POLICE officers are likely to have to wait until the New Year for a decision on potentially introducing compulsory severance to the service.<\/p>\n
Both the Staff and Official sides of the Police Negotiating Board made their cases over the controversial issue to the Police Arbitration Tribunal on 15 November. Once they have made their views known, Home Secretary Theresa May will then have the final decision.<\/p>\n
Mark Smith, chairman of Essex Police Federation, said he believed it will be at least January before arbiters make their minds up \u2013 and that it is likely to be a \u201ccould not decide\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWe have a very good case. Introducing compulsory severance to the service would change the face of policing in England and Wales forever. Police officers do not have contracts. We cannot strike. We are special case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Smith said that if the power was ever introduced to policing, he feared it would be used for \u201ccost cutting\u201d reasons.<\/p>\n
Speaking to EssexFedFocus last month, Stephen Kavanagh, chief constable of Essex Police, was asked about whether he would introduce compulsory severance to the force. \u201cI understand the need for us to consider every eventuality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are some big decisions to be made. Do I ever want to us it? No. Can I rule out ever using it? No I can\u2019t. I see it as an absolute emergency option that should be kept in a glass case and broken in case of emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs May has consistently refused to comment on compulsory severance saying she would make her decision on whether to ratify the PAT\u2019s decision when it was made.<\/p>\n
It was described as a \u201csad day\u201d for policing in England and Wales as the Police Negotiating Board registered a \u201cfailure to agree\u201d over compulsory severance on July 24.<\/p>\n
Ian Rennie, PFEW General Secretary and Staff Side secretary at PNB, said that while the Staff Side of the PNB has \u201cgrave doubts\u201d about the proposals for compulsory severance it has attempted to engage in constructive discussions with the Official Side.<\/p>\n
Speaking after the hearing on 15 November, Mr Rennie said: \u201cThe PAT has been asked to make decisions in respect of a number of recommendations from the Winsor Final Report, which include the introduction of Compulsory Severance and changes to how Police Officers on Restricted Duties are managed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
POLICE officers are likely to have to wait until the New Year for a decision on potentially introducing compulsory severance to the service. Both the Staff and Official sides of\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":300,"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\/574"}],"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=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":575,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions\/575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}