The official version of this document can be found via the PDF button.
The below content has been automatically generated from the original PDF and some formatting may have been lost, therefore it should not be relied upon to extract citations or propose amendments.
Education and Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel
Police Force Association Response to Draft States of Jersey Police Force (Amendment No.2) Law 201-
The last time this was mentioned to us was sometime in May 2016 and there has been no consultation since. Our response at that time was, as below, but we did not received any communication following that response:
1. States of Jersey Police Force Law amendment 2
There has been no consultation in relation to this legislation – or indeed any indication of the need. Police Officers are sworn Officers who are regulated by law, and are held accountable by that law. Any civilian employee or company employed to carry out policing function cannot be held to account by the current legislation. Presumably they will be employed as civil servants and with that comes the right to take industrial action, with very little notice.
Officers may become de-skilled in the areas of civilianisation and thus may not be able to backfill where required at short notice.
Police conduct is regulated by the Discipline codes applicable to Police Officers. Will there be a similar code for others on whom police powers are bestowed?
Further to the above, and following further consideration in light of staffing and budget changes, we now have further concerns in relation to the proposed legislation:-
- Resilience – with increased civilianisation there comes decreased resilience in that the pool from which officer can be recalled is smaller as is the pool of officers able to take on specialist roles such as Firearms, Surveillance, Search, SOLO, FLO, SIO, Accident Investigators, Negotiators, etc.. Can we afford to lose any more officers in addition to those posts already lost due to budgetary constraints, and maintain our resilience?
- Aging Workforce – Following the later retirement date for Officers being imposed upon us, the posts that they are seeking to civilianise are the posts which historically have been filled by the more mature officer. Where does employer think the Chief can deploy the more mature Officer (55 – 60 years) if they civilianise the posts to which they have previously been deployed?