Committee announces new inquiry into Reform of the Police Federation

The inquiry will consider:

• the extent to which the current structure of the Federation enables it to represent the interests of its members effectively;
• whether its financial governance arrangements provide sufficient assurance to members and stakeholders that the Federation’s expenditure represents value for money; and
• how the Federation might adapt to better meet current challenges, including the introduction of the new landscape of policing and the impact of changes to members’ pay, pension and terms and conditions of employment.

The Committee would welcome views on these and any other matters that may be relevant to the inquiry.

Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP, Chair of the Committee, said:

Rank and file police officers do one of the most challenging jobs in this country, routinely putting themselves in harm’s way to protect the safety of the rest of us. They need and deserve a representative body that will be a powerful advocate for their interests, representing individual officers when they need help and providing a clear public voice for its membership at national level.

Members have seen a 23% subscription hike in a time of austerity, but the evidence is that large numbers of them increasingly feel let down by the Federation.

We will be considering what the Federation needs to do to re-connect with its members and to focus on its core purpose in the context of the new landscape of policing. We will also want to see how they propose to implement the recommendation of the Normington review which was rightly set up by the national leadership.

Submitting written evidence

As part of a scheme to encourage paperless working and maximise efficiency, the Committee now utilises a web portal for the submission of written evidence. Written submissions for this inquiry should therefore be sent online via this web page: Police Federation inquiry page.

The Committee invites written submissions on these issues by midday on Tuesday 1 April 2014.

Each submission should:
a) be no more than 3,000 words in length
b) be in Word format with as little use of colour or logos as possible
c) have numbered paragraphs
d) include a declaration of interests.

Please note that:

• Material already published elsewhere should not form the basis of a submission, but may be referred to within a proposed memorandum, in which case a hard copy of the published work should be included.
• Memoranda submitted must be kept confidential until published by the Committee, unless publication by the person or organisation submitting it is specifically authorised.
• Once submitted, evidence is the property of the Committee. The Committee normally, though not always, chooses to make public the written evidence it receives, by publishing it on the internet (where it will be searchable), by printing it or by making it available through the Parliamentary Archives. If there is any information you believe to be sensitive you should highlight it and explain what harm you believe would result from its disclosure. The Committee will take this into account in deciding whether to publish or further disclose the evidence.
• Select Committees are unable to investigate individual cases.

The remit of the Home Affairs Committee is to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Home Office and its associated public bodies.