Page 4 - police world Edition 3 2013

The Section UK National Council
Meeting (NCM) was held a few short
weeks ago at the Palace Hotel, Torquay.
You will have already received notification of
some of the outcomes of the Section’s principal
business meeting through items previously
published on the website and the monthly
updates circulated by our staff at Nottingham.
The most significant outcome of the NCM was
the decisive vote in favour of extending
membership of IPA to include Police Staff. This
and the other proposals are described in more
detail in the separate update included on pages
6 and 7. Suffice to say that this issue has been
on our agenda for the best part of 20 years
without achieving a resolution. I am delighted
that Council has now given its overwhelming
support, and that now brings the matter to a
conclusion.
In this article I want to summarise the progress
made since I last reported on the main threads
of our strategy. In brief what our agreed
headline strategy aims to achieve is financial
viability and growth in membership. Everything
that we do on the National Executive should be
guided by these clear objectives.
Finance
I have to start with an apology. At the NCM
2012 in Cardiff, Fred Boyd the National
Treasurer reported that we had operated at a
significant deficit of over £9,000 in 2011. The
NEC gave an undertaking that we would
achieve a balanced budget for 2012. That was
not realised, and the end of year accounts
again show a deficit, albeit much reduced, of
£1,200.
I would like to add some context to the budget
outcome this year and indeed recent years. You
only need to go back 5 or 6 years to when our
reserve was attracting 10% interest, adding
about £30,000 annually to the coffers.
Currently we are attracting only £4,000 per
annum interest. Furthermore, for the first time
we agreed to pay a guaranteed fixed levy of
12.5% to Regions from 2012. In March 2012
over £30,000 was given back to Regions.
Compare that to recent years where Regions
have received very much less and on occasion
nothing at all! The simple arithmetic suggests
that to achieve a balanced budget we have to
scale back on our spending to the tune of
£45 - £55,000 compared to six years ago.
As you would expect we have had to review how
we spend your money in our efforts to reconcile
expenditure against our projected income. A
great deal of effort has been expended in
identifying and achieving many small savings
and also others that are relatively significant.
Examples are: £6,000 reduction in Police World
costs through reduced paper weight that also
reduces postage and through some hard
negotiation with various printers a considerable
reduction in publication costs. These savings
will have no impact on quality, page numbers
per edition or editions per annum!
The most significant saving has been a
reduction of circa £14,000 on staff wages. This
has been achieved by moving to a four day
week and not having the office staffed on
Fridays. All of our staff are to be commended
for their positive involvement and cooperation
during this review of staff requirements. We
have now been operating a four day week for
more than three months without any
expressions of concern from members.
These savings have not been achieved without
a great deal of effort and cooperation. Fred
Boyd and Michele deserve our thanks as do the
other members of the Staffing Group, Mick
Luke and Dave Taylor, and of course our staff at
Fox Road.
While still on the theme of finance I can
report that we are not only focussing on cost
savings. Vice President Ronnie Dukes has
been asked to look for potential sources of
income generation. To that end Ronnie is
currently reviewing all aspects of our
webshop. He identified that Section
Netherlands with a membership
of 7,000 has an average
annual turnover of about
20,000 Euros compared to
our average turnover of less
that £2,500. It is the
recently appointed
President of Section
Netherlands, Johanna
Schotanus who developed
the Dutch webshop over the
last five years, and we were
fortunate to have her as a guest at the NCM at
Torquay where Ronnie had the opportunity to
learn from her success. Ronnie is also
developing other ideas for income generation
and I am sure that we will soon all be
benefitting from the products of his efforts.
Dave Taylor has just completed his first year as
Secretary General. Soon after Dave came to the
NEC it was agreed that there was a need to
streamline the management and oversight of
our staff. Dave now has sole responsibility for
the day to day management of staff. Given his
wider responsibilities to our staff he quickly
identified the deficit that exists in our collective
expertise around HR and employment
legislation. A low cost remedy has been to
engage a firm of employment specialists on a
retainer basis. This is a real value for money
initiative that provides an initial ‘health check’
around existing contracts and working
conditions. More than that, it also provides us
with legal protection and legal advice that
effectively ensures that neither the Association
nor our elected members will ever suffer
financial liability. So you will
recognise that this
measure is also
aligned to our
objective of
achieving and
sustaining
financial viability in
the longer term.
Police World Vol 58 No.3 2013 4
An Update from the NEC
Working on
your behalf
National President, Tom Crozier, updates members
on news from the National Council Meeting.
Johanna Schotanus, President
Section Netherlands and Tom
Crozier, President Section UK