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Sep 24 - Gibraltar Police Association Releases Staff Survey Results

The Gibraltar Police Association has released a statement on their recent Staff Survey. 

Their statement follows;

The main objectives of the Association were to enable police officers, under the rank of Superintendent, to consider and bring to the notice of the Commissioner of Police, the Gibraltar Police Authority or the Government matters affecting the welfare, (health and safety) and efficiency of the Force.

As you can very well imagine, policing in Gibraltar and its demands, have considerably changed since then.

The Association’s council has worked all these years on a voluntary basis. The members of the council were fully operational with limited facility time afforded. For this reason, many member’s complaints and queries were poorly addressed, together with officer’s conditions of service, which remained unreviewed since the 1990’s. European Time Directives were not being adhered to and required to be brought in line.

In 2009, the Police council started lobbying HM Government of Gibraltar so that the Association should become a Federation enacted in law and for the latter to have full time representatives for its officers and mirroring our UK counterparts.

The present Government Administration in both their electoral Manifestos made commitments to establish a Police Federation.

In June 2015, representatives of the Association approached the Chief Minister, the Hon Mr Fabian Picardo QC MP with their proposals, as there was a dire need for officers from the RGP to be properly and accordingly represented. This was affecting their morale, and their complaints were not being properly addressed. Most importantly, the Association’s status needed to be updated and modernised.

The Chief Minister was very supportive of Federating the Association and he embarked in making the necessary arrangements for two convenors to be in full time employment, with a proper and fully furnished office. The Convenors in conjunction with the Government’s Legislative Office and the Minister of Justice, The Hon Mr Neil Costa MP worked incessantly in presenting legislation to Parliament to establish the Gibraltar Police Federation.

On the 15th June 2018, Parliament unanimously approved the legislation and the Gibraltar Police Federation was enacted in law as an independent body.

The Federation has continuously brought up issues such as working conditions, morale, and manning levels with the Commissioner of Police and Senior Management Team which have notably increased due to the changing landscape of policing in our modern community. The Federation has fully supported the Human resources business case as proposed by the Commissioner of Police and his Senior Management Team to the GOG.

We asked our members very recently to complete a Staff Survey from the 1st August to the 3rd September 2018, which covers all aspects of their working conditions and welfare in the RGP.

This survey was conducted totally independently and completely confidentially by an independent marketing agency.

We feel, the 87% completion rate reinforces our concerns and further corroborates the highlighted issues that need to be dealt with.

The attached infographic is the result of 190 members that completed the survey with another 6 not finishing it out of our 225 members.

41% of the respondees expressed low morale and 80% of officers perceiving the morale of the organisation as poor, with 41% reporting poor working life balance.

54% of the workforce have stated that they have contemplated in leaving the RGP.

45% of the officers have reported that they have been a victim of bullying/victimisation at work.

86 officers have reported in the survey instances of bullying, 24 officers stating that they had been bullied just this past year. None of these have been reported officially.

54% have stated that they have witnessed bullying / victimisation at work with 86% not reporting it, many commenting fearing possible reprisals.

58% remain unconfident of the current grievance procedures.

Though 42% of the members are satisfied with the current 5 shift system they are equally divided in the opinion that they should have a different shift pattern (12-hour shift system 4 on 4 off) as many feel current man power levels are not properly sustained with rest days and change of hours constantly changed to meet operational demands.

Although 51% of the members are satisfied with their current salary, 52% are unsatisfied with their allowances.

83% of the members are unsatisfied with the current staffing levels in their shifts and departments highlighting health and safety issues with respect to low man power levels and continued higher operational demands.

61% reported that they feel unsafe whilst carrying out operational duties.

69% feel overworked with 47% currently suffering from work related stress.

55% of the members have reported that they’ve had instances of their rest days changed with 54% not been given the required 15 days’ notice.

67% of the members have reported that their working hours/shifts been changed with 65% not being consulted and 52% not been given enough notice.

54% of officers have reported that they have been unhappy with the management of refreshment breaks and facilities.

55% were satisfied with their personal safety equipment. 89% of officers are very unhappy with IT facilities and 68% unhappy with the maintenance of vehicles and vessels.

61% of officers were unsatisfied with the security of stations.

66% did not feel that their career opportunities were linked to their experience /qualifications and a large percentage did not feel that they were adequately managed with respect to personal assessments, mentoring/attachments, specialist training and retraining.

The problems highlighted are not just attributed to the lack of manpower.

Constant issues regarding low manning levels and high organisational demands have not helped with the situation. Though the Commissioner of Police has assured the Federation that the Chief Minister and HM Government of Gibraltar are in favour of increasing the police compliment, we are still waiting for this to materialize.

The most valuable asset of our organisation are its officers and staff. Officers need to have their proper refreshment breaks and unbroken rest days to be fresh, ready and able to cope with this demanding job. Needless to say, a happy workforce will promote morale and will increase productivity.

The Federation has requested that a joint working group be set up to tackle all these concerning issues as soon as possible.

It is the Federation’s intentions to continue with these surveys for a period of three years in order to asses and substantiate progression and to be able to identify any concerns that may arise in the future.



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