Regional Team
Regional News Update - July 2010
East Midlands
Eastern
Wales
South West
South East
North West
London
British Transport Police
Metropolitan Police
West Midlands
North East
East Midlands
The East Midlands First Line Leadership Training is gathering speed. We now have confirmed NPIA Ryton as the site that will hold the initial pilot, taking place on the 1st - 3rd October. The application for the candidates has been approved and has gone to the forces for dissemination in order to identify the three leadership champions per force. The content will be finalised by the end of July. The trainers, who will be delivering the course over the weekend, have now been identified and confirmed. Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire are early adopters for the IL4SC (Initial Learning for Special Constables) programme.
Derbyshire are the latest force to sign up to the National Recruitment Standards alongside Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire who are already up and running with the process. Derbyshire and Northamptonshire are very well represented at the upcoming Senior Leadership Courses at Bramshill.
Finally, big congratulations to Leicestershire Volunteers Team, who won the PSV Ferrers Award and to Derbyshire's B Division Community safety and HR Team, who were highly commended for their achievements in recruitment at this years Ferrers Awards held on the 17th June.
Eastern
National Recruitment Standards (NRS): This month has seen considerable discussions with all the regions forces on the NRS resulting in benefits and concerns being raised; these have been progressed through both the NPIA Policy Unit and Exams and Assessments Unit resulting in revised guidance being issued to all forces through Regional Coordinators.
The NRS provides a real opportunity to collaborate as a full region or with neighbouring forces to either share the pool(s) of Assessors and QA trained staff or run combined Assessment Centres. This guidance should help forces make informed decisions on the product.
Initial Learning for Special Constables (IL4SC): This has now been trialled by Bedfordshire and is generally considered a good product with further developments which has been fed back to the NPIA. The learning to date will be shared with the other 5 regional forces at the next meeting in July.
Employer Supported Policing (ESP) continues to develop. Negotiations are at a positive stage with a national holiday park organisation who are keen to extend an existing pilot in the region.
Recruitment across the Eastern Region continues at a steady pace with month on month growth building on the solid base created over the last 18 months. Application levels remain high in all forces.
Wales
At the recent quarterly regional meeting, the main focus of the Welsh Forces is currently on the retention and motivation of our Special Constabulary. With this in mind, each force embraced the recent National Volunteers Week and utilised this event to arrange numerous interesting Special Constabulary led operations.
Both Dyfed Powys and South Wales chose to focus on the youth in their areas. Dyfed Powys officers assisted with high profile community events such as the Urdd Eisteddfod in Ceredigion and the Beach Break Live student festival in Pembrey and PACT priorities relating to youth annoyance were targeted by Special Constables in South Wales resulting in 30 ASBO referrals and large quantities of alcohol being confiscated.
Gwent Special Constables decided to support the European Summer Drink Driving Campaign and set up an operation where officers conducted a total of 275 'voluntary' breath tests with drivers in the area.
North Wales utilised their Special Constables to assist in 3 successful recruitment events held during that week in their central division.
The national event and all the resulting operations proved to be very successful in raising the profile and awareness of the Special Constabulary and received a good response from the Special Constables, their Police Officer colleagues and members of the public.
South West
Olympic Planning is now underway in the South West Region. Dorset Police have appointed Special Constable Kerry Daly as the Special Constabulary Olympic Planning Liaison Officer. SC Daly is carrying out vital work in relation to the Dorset Special Constabulary in preparation for the games. SC Daly works closely with the Force Olympic Planning Department and is in the process of carrying out a skills audit, establishing Special Constables potential and appetite for involvement in the operational requirements of the games and to ensure that the Special Constabulary is equipped and skilled in readiness for the Olympic Games.
Wiltshire has suggested that their Special Constabulary will be deployed to backfill for the night time economy during the Olympic Games. There are no main events in the County, however, there is potential for big screen gatherings and it is likely that the Special Constabulary will be policing these events. A training/skills gap exercise is taking place towards the end of 2010 and is currently being planned by SC Superintendant Richard Bellamy.
The Region is starting to forge ahead with activity around Employer Supported Policing. Avon & Somerset are carrying out a review of their internal scheme. Dorset has just been successful in increasing the number of Special Constable days for police staff from 5 to 12 days a year. Devon and Cornwall and Wiltshire are about to start a scoping exercise with their current Special Constables in order to establish any employer support that is not being recognised or acknowledged, this scoping exercise will be the start of further development of Employer Supported Policing externally; there is also particular interest in how organisations can support their Special Constabulary and Police Forces during the Olympic Games. Gloucestershire have given ESP portfolio responsibility to the Forest and Gloucester Divisional Officer.
The second South West Regional Collaboration project team meeting was held on Saturday 26th June, work has taken place around potential areas for collaboration. Forces are encouraged to adopt national products in order to standardise with a view to then collaborate. Work strand leads are pulling together a proposal paper that will be presented to the Regional Collaboration programme lead DCC Chris Lee in September 2010, this paper will outline proposed areas for collaboration, recommendations for and benefits of that collaboration, timescales and ownership. The South West Regional Coordinator is the project lead for the Special Constabulary work stream of the programme.
South East
Raising the profile of the Special Constabulary remains the biggest focus of the South East Region and by working together this can be accelerated. The ACPO Regional Lead ACC Ian Dyson has gained agreement to the four principles for joint operations, namely: marketing, interoperability, mutual aid or cross border crime. Any future operation should be based around this. ACPO Teams from across the Region have signed up to these principles. ACC Dyson is the regional lead for the Olympics so by closer working together we can make the region 'fit' in time for 2012. Plans are in place for another operation in Autumn 2010.
The recent Regional meeting hosted by Surrey had presentations from the Metropolitan Police OCU for Special Constabulary on their Step Change Programme and from PC Tom Arthur from Surrey on the Initial Learning for Special Constabulary programme. Both presentations were well received by delegates from across the Region.
Hampshire continues to lead the way in the region on Employer Supported Policing (ESP) initiatives and hosted an ESP Workshop for its police and special constabulary middle managers. Invitations were extended to the Region and delegates attended from both Surrey and TVP. Chief Superintendent Richard Rowland hosted the event and had guest speakers from Gun wharf Quays, Portsmouth, Festival Place, Basingstoke and NPIA ESP Lead James W Deller and the National Strategy Programme Manager, Carol Sheppard.
Collaboration seems to be the key for the Region and work is underway to look at how the forces can recruit Special Constables from Public Sector courses in Further Education Colleges. Initial work has been undertaken by most forces in the Region, but there are opportunities for sharing good practice and agreeing common principles. Work is still being progressed at developing a first line supervisor's course for the Region.
North West
Special Inspector Kevin McHardy and Superintendent Mark Cotton were invited to speak about the work of Cheshire Police Specials at the Scottish National Specials Conference held at the Scottish Police College Tulliallan Castle. Kevin spoke about his operational success with Operation Brogue and Mark gave a presentation on how Cheshire Constabulary has implemented the National Strategy and shared best practice. Both presentations were well received and a lengthy Q&A session at the end was experienced.Cheshire Volunteers Team won the National Achievement in Recruitment award at the recent Ferrer's event.
Cumbria SC have enjoyed a successful June winning the Team Ferrer's awards for the outstanding duty they gave to the Cumbria floods. SC Susan Holliday was Ferrer's individual runner up for her Farm Watch scheme. Special Inspector Simon Jones with 3 police colleagues attended the 15th Police Federation Bravery Awards, backed by The Sun, in London. The Police Bravery Awards are an annual event which recognises the tremendous and incredibly important jobs police officers do for their communities every day of their lives.
Nominations for the awards are made by the Federation's Branch Boards across England and Wales and each year there are 8 regional winners, of which one goes on to clinch the top award.
Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed 58 nominees to No10 before a dazzling awards ceremony at the Dorchester Hotel in London. There were eight regional prizes and one overall winner.
Simon was nominated for displaying nerves of steel when confronting a killer who had just knifed his victim in a pub. The officers were called to the George & Dragon in Stockport to find the stabbed man on the floor in a pool of blood. Resisting violently, the assailant refused to drop his knife until then SC Challis (now a regular), twisted the blade from his grip. Unfortunately the victim's injuries were too serious and he did not recover.
Lancashire and Merseyside are undergoing a Special Constabulary Review - recommendations are due out soon.
ACPO regional lead Commander Patrick Rice leaves the force for his appointment as Chief Officer of Guernsey Police in early August, we wish him well in his new role and every success.
The City are using a slightly-modified version of Ospre (NPIA promotion process for regular officers) for the promotion process for Special Sergeants. This is to more accurately reflect the regular process to ensure the right people are in the right places and to help add credibility to those supervisors within the City Special Constabulary.
Congratulations go to Special Superintendent Jennie Harvie; she was selected as the City's Special of the Year at the Annual Awards Dinner in the City Grange Hotel recently.
Finally SC Patrick Rarden was announced as the winner of the Ferrers Trophy. The Ferrers competition is an annual event promoted by the NPIA. It recognises individuals and teams for exceptional performance in volunteering in the police service.
British Transport Police
Following the successful trial of an 'Area Officer' role in the London South Area of the British Transport Police, 'Area Officers' have now been appointed in the force's London North, North East and Scottish Areas. The role is a three bar rank aimed at providing strategic leadership to the Special Constabulary on a BCU.
Op Oscillate 13 was held on Saturday 8th May and saw 12 BTP Specials from the London South Area working with Surrey Police Specials at Woking and Hampshire Constabulary Specials at Basingstoke Station as well as South West Trains Rail Community Officers and revenue staff. The operation was part of Op Watergrove II, a South East Region Special Constabulary operation aimed at targeting anti-social behaviour and travelling criminality. This collaborative Operation was a success with a number of arrests and persons reported for offences and was supported by South West trains in terms of sending out the message that anti-social behaviour and fare evasion is unacceptable.
Metropolitan Police
As of 12th July 2010 the overall strength of the Metropolitan Special Constabulary is 3558 officers. In June 2010, 1070 people applied to become an MSC officer. Of these, 51 were members of MPS police staff.
MSC Assistant Chief Officer, Pat Holdsworth, was awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2010, for services to policing and international voluntary work. Pat has given 41 years to the MSC and works in excess of 1000 hours per year.
A Special Constable in Westminster made three arrests in June - in his first three tours of duty. The Special, who is also a member of police staff at the Safer Transport Command, arrested three men: one on suspicion of serious sexual offences, another for breaching the conditions of his anti-social dispersal order and the third for carrying CS gas.
Another Special Constable, on Croydon Borough, also made her first arrest on her first ever patrol. She arrested a woman on suspicion of cultivating cannabis.
The contribution made by Met Volunteers to improving public confidence in London and increasing efficiency within the organisation has been praised by the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice. Met Volunteers from Brent and Wandsworth received high commendations from Nick Herbert MP at the NPIA's Special Constable and Police Support Volunteer Awards 2010. The ongoing support for customer service standards given by Brent volunteers triggered the first increase in confidence amongst Brent residents for 18 months. The support given by the Wandsworth volunteer has helped clear a backlog of paperwork, freeing up both storage space and officer time.
West Midlands
'The West Midlands Regional forces are continuing to move forward with Specials recruitment and all now have a training delivery plan to demonstrate how they intend to meet their targets.
A couple of developments of note are firstly, West Mercia have a process map aimed at addressing leavers. The process is entitled 'Your Special, don't go.' and Staffordshire are training ten specials in presentation skills to deliver some training courses (approved by the force training department) to their colleagues. Further details can be obtained from the forces.'
North East
Congratulations to the NE Regions SC's following their recent outstanding success in the Ferrers Awards, these included:
Overall Individual Award:
Runner-up - Nigel Kettlewell, North Yorkshire Police
Commended - Christopher Coombes, West Yorkshire Police
Ferrers Team Award:
Commended - Gipton & Harehills Neighbourhood Policing Team, West Yorkshire Police
Commended - SC Team, Cleveland Police
Achievement in Recruitment:
Commended - Brendan Black, West Yorkshire Police
NRS: The N.E Region continues to progress with the implementation of NPIA, NRS with North Yorkshire Police being the latest Force to sign up, and all Forces committed to NRS training offered by the NPIA. Northumbria whilst continuing to recruit are also currently evaluating recent campaign effectiveness for incorporation into future marketing/recruitment plans. Durham held their last recruitment assessment day under their old system with all future recruits undertaking the NPIA, NRS process.
ILP4SC: Following successful piloting of the ILP4SC by South Yorkshire Police evaluation feedback from the National Strategy Implementation Team is scheduled for August; with plans for a further programme follow up, with a Regional Trainers meeting to assist Forces in the roll out process.
ESP: Several Forces are seeking to implement ESP within the NE Region, with Durham Constabulary's recent recruitment of volunteer Rebecca Dixon to assist with their future programme implementation and South Yorkshire's use and adoption of the NPIA, ESP toolkit material to 10 large Companies specifically targeted for ESP within their area.
Finally. SC's continue to successfully add value and resilience to the policing of the 'big events' within the NE Region, contributions range from North Yorkshire SCs' at the Great Yorkshire Show, Durham's SCs' at the Miners Gala, and Cleveland's SCs' at Hartlepool's during the forthcoming Tall Ships event planned in August 2010.
