Conference gets underway

22 May 2018

Policing minister Nick Hurd will be among the guest panellists at the Police Federation’s annual national conference which is being held at Birminghams’s ICC today and tomorrow (22 and 23 May).

A group of Leicestershire Police Federation representatives will attend the conference which has the theme Protecting the Protectors: The reality of policing.

“During conference, Police Federation leaders and representatives from across England and Wales will fully take advantage of this opportunity to explain the difficulties faced by police officers as we try to do more with less,” says Tiff Lynch, chair of Leicestershire Police Federation.

“Due to the Government’s cuts programmes, we now have thousands fewer officers on the streets protecting their communities but there has been no corresponding decrease in demand and this has put the police service under huge pressure.”

Today’s sessions will include discussions about the IOPC, the Federation’s Protect the Protectors campaign and the demand and capacity imbalance. Delegates will be able to choose from break-out sessions on fatigue, women in policing and stop and search linked to knife crime.

Ahead of lunch, Holly Lynch, MP for Halifax, who has championed the assaults campaign, will present the annual Women in Policing Award.

The day will end with a question time session with Mr Hurd, Sir Thomas Winsor, who heads Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services, and shadow policing minister Louise Haigh.