The longest day.? A participant on CEPOL course Economic and Financial Crime: Investigating Corruption which took place in Slovakia, DI Tosh learned that getting home was not going to be as straight forward as it should have been. The participants headed for the airport, only to discover all the flights were cancelled. The initial assessment was that flights would resume on Saturday or Sunday, but by Sunday, it was clear he would need to find an alternative solution. DI Tosh considered hiring a car, but it was too expensive. He also investigated catching a bus to London (amazingly there is a bus from Slovakia to London with a journey time of 23 hours) but the bus was fully booked with the next available seat in 10 days time. DI Tosh decided to try the rail option. The Slovakian hosts drove him to Vienna train station in Austria to catch an international train. What should have been a simple one hour drive, was further delayed as the Vienna marathon was taking place, blocking all routes. DI Tosh jumped out the car and headed for the Vienna underground instead. Upon arrival at the train station, he queued for 2 hours, only to be told there were no trains running to Paris. He decided to try to head as far west as possible, taking the train at 22:30 hours on Sunday night to Zurich in Switzerland. Arriving at 07:30 on Monday morning, he changed to a train to Basel where he managed to get a connection to Strasbourg. In Strasbourg he managed to catch a train to Paris with the intention of hopping on the Eurostar home to London, but it was fully booked. The earliest possible seat he was offered was three days away. After speaking with Jayne Grant at CEPOL Secretariat who informed him there was a taxi in the vicinity as some Annual Programme Committee members facing similar travel problems had been driven to France, he took a train from Paris to Lille arriving at 17:00. After getting lost, the taxi driver turned up at 20:00. Able to catch the Eurotunnel, DI Tosh arrived back on UK soil at 22:30. The taxi drove him back home to Essex, but to add insult to injury, the motorway was blocked and a traffic diversion meant a further delay. A much relieved DI Tosh finally arrived home safe - but extremely tired - at 23:50 on Monday night. Reflecting on the experience, DI Tosh said: "It is a shame that the travel problems took the shine off the last day of what really was a fantastic CEPOL course! I am happy to add, however, that it has not put me off attending another course, although I may wait until all volcanic activity has ceased in Iceland before travelling again." (Article supplied by the CEPOL Secretariat) Detective Inspector Stephen Tosh from the Ministry of Defence Police (United Kingdom) who was nominated to attend the 'Economic and Financial Crime' by the UK CEPOL representatives, Inspector Paul Hawkaluk and Georgina Evans. APC discuss grant agreements The evaluation report for 2009 activities and the analysis of CEPOL courses and seminars, as well as the Exchange Programme, were also discussed. The Spanish Presidency announced that the Police Cooperation Working Party presented the revised draft Council Decision on the new Exchange Programme to the COREPER Council for approval. The Commission confirmed that the exchange programme will be part of CEPOL's budget in 2011. The committee discussed in depth its role in the newly adopted system of Framework Contracts and Grant agreements, following the added task assigned by the Governing Board to act as an 'evaluation committee' for the awarding of grants. The committee agreed that all nine members will be involved to evaluate the grant applications. A set of selection criteria were identified. The committee's planning cycle is being changed to accommodate these new tasks. All preparations need to be in place for the new system by end 2010 to be implemented from January 2011. (Article supplied by the CEPOL Secretariat) Georgina Evans, the UK representative, attended the Annual Programme Committee Meeting that took place on 15 and 16 April 2010 at Bramshill.
Detective Inspector Stephen Tosh, Ministry of Defence Police (United Kingdom) faced, along with 1000s of other travellers, the challenge of getting back home due to the Volcanic ash that closed airspace across Europe for almost a week in April.
The main focus of the 18th Annual Programme Committee meeting which took place at Bramshill on 15-16 April was the Work Programme 2011, reduction in the 2011 budget, measures proposed for better budget management of current and future activities and a new task for the committee concerning Framework Contracts and Grant Agreements.
