90 days from today is Wed, 26 June 2024

West Midlands Police Federation

West Midlands Police Federation contact details

Blog: POTUS Visit & Overnight allowance

29 June 2018

Update from our Chair Rich Cooke:

This is the biggest operation of it’s kind we have EVER been engaged in as a Force. It is a planning nightmare and the itinerary for the visit has even been amended in the last few days. This makes things extremely fluid and difficult to sort out.

This does constitute an exigency of duty (an urgent or pressing need). Police Officers can be ordered to do mutual aid in these circumstances. That said, we are working we the Force to ensure that posting is done as fairly as possible and extenuating circumstances are taken into account. These should be raised first locally through the normal chain of command. If you feel your circumstances have not been given due consideration or fair treatment you may want to contact a locally based Fed rep of any rank or department. Reps List

Initially, the Force asked for “volunteers”. This may have created a confusion among some reading this as meaning officers cannot be posted. The reason they asked for volunteers was, in good faith, and not to mislead; the idea being that if officers better placed to attend the deployment volunteer, this would reduce the amount of officers with genuine issues having to be inconvenienced more than they already will be.

Overnight Allowance

Our position is that the overnight allowance should be paid to ALL officers required on mutual aid in overnight accommodation whatever Force they come from. We are currently taking legal advice to confirm for officers what their rights are in the circumstances where they are required on mutual aid but not “held in reserve” (immediately deployable), meaning that while off duty, we can do as we normally would and, also, return home. This creates obvious potential problems, and this is why the Federation is working closely with our Force and the Home Office to ensure that this is sorted out in time for President Trump. We are also considering legal action nationally to clarify the regulation concerned once and for all, and thereby prevent further issues like this in the future.

I have made personal representations to the Chief Constable who is also working hard to resolve this collectively with his counterparts across the country as soon as possible.

I will be attending the deployment myself as an active officer and as Fed lead. I hope this will help to ensure that accommodation is appropriate, and all of us are treated well, as is the intention. It will also give those of you deployed a local point of contact.

Our Branch Secretary, Steve Grange, is at Lloyd House as I write continuing to negotiate the best possible terms for our officers both staying in Force and out.

I will update you again as soon as I have any further.

Thanks for your continuing professionalism in testing times.

Regards

Rich

Chair, West Midlands Police Federation

Rich can be followed on Twitter.