Home Secretary Must Engage With Officers At Conference

It’s important that the Home Secretary attends the Police Federation of England and Wales’s virtual annual conference and listens to the concerns of officers, Hampshire Police Federation has said.

This year’s conference takes place online on 10-11 October, but Hampshire Police Federation Chair Zoë Wakefield said it was “disappointing” that it wasn’t in person.

Zoë said: “I would have loved to have had the opportunity for a face-to-face Q&A with the Home Secretary. I don’t feel that reps will be able to get across the strength of feeling from officers at the moment, in a virtual conference. For me, that’s really disappointing.

“I hope the Home Secretary still attends and that there will still be the opportunity for a Q&A. But I think it is a shame we aren’t having it in person, because we’ve got so many crucial things going on at the moment that need discussing: industrial rights, the fact that we’re not in the PRRB, this latest firearms issue, the Legally Qualified Chairs being removed from misconduct hearings.

“There are so many big topics that it would have been really good to have proper discussions and debates on in conference.”

She added: “We will get together as a group of Hampshire delegates and observers, because for a lot of them it’s their first conference. So we need to be together so that we can all discuss what’s happening online. It’s a real opportunity for our reps to tune in to what’s going on at a national level.”