In Suffolk, the Special Constabulary co-ordinator Mick Mann has gained national recognition for his efforts to encourage local businesses to support policing in the county.
Mick recently collected a ‘Highly Commended’ award at the Special Constable and Support Volunteer Awards 2012 for his work to expand Suffolk’s Employer Supported Policing (ESP) scheme.
Briefly, the national scheme aims to encourage businesses to allow employees who also work as volunteer special constables in their spare time a degree of flexibility and to actively promote volunteering to the rest of their workforce.
A number of the 300-plus volunteer Special Constables who work in the county already work for organisations that are part of the scheme. Organisers say this has benefits for police, the company or organisation and individuals concerned, and Suffolk.
At the most basic level employers allow the police force to promote recruitment while at the other end of the scale they permit Special Constable trained employees to be released in the event of an emergency or to take several hours each month to do policing duties. For example Suffolk’s top Special, Chief Officer Paul Goldsmith, is a full-time employee of Waveney District Council but they regularly allow him to be flexible with his work so he can also be a Specials manager.
Around the county those already signed up include Mothercare, Sainsbury’s, Network Rail, Suffolk Coastal District Council, Axa and Willis in Ipswich, BT at Martlesham Heath, HM Prison Service, the Forestry Commission at Santon Downham, the Ministry of Defence at Mildenhall and DHL who release Special Constabulary Assistant Chief Officer Dean Knight.
Mick, a retired police officer who now works as a member of support staff co-ordinating the Special Constabulary in Suffolk, saw a new strategy was required to build the Employer Support Policing process and took personal responsibility for increasing the county’s number of special constables.
He created a team to promote ESP to employers and identified that Special Constables themselves should be a main part of that. He then worked with these volunteers to meet with both local and national businesses, attend careers fair and to find other opportunities to raise awareness of the scheme in the business community. He also:
Encouraged companies to develop posters and internal literature for display on notice boards or electronic dissemination, to assist with recruitment;
Spoke to existing Specials, whose employers were not registered with ESP, to ask if the force could contact their manager and inform them of the ESP programme;
Worked to implement a new ESP recording module for duty management allowing the Constabulary to provide a reporting platform to monitor performance and provide feedback.
Mick also chairs a regional group set up five years ago to encourage the development of ESP schemes not only in Suffolk but across Norfolk, Cambridgeshire., Essex, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.
Mick says: “As with most things, this was really a team effort and I’m grateful to those who have supported and worked with me on this. It is great to get some recognition for the scheme and I’d invite any business representatives interested in finding out more to get in touch.”
The award was presented to Mick at the national ceremony in the Great Hall at Westminster last month. Greater Manchester Police won the award, with Suffolk highly commended.
If you’re in the east of England would like to know more about employer supported policing and how you can get your organisation involved whether you’re an employer or an employee, please call Mick Mann on 01473 613638 or email [email protected]
