Public order policing: what’s next?

Last month, we hosted the policing Public Order Public Safety Conference – read the guest article by Gaynor Wardle, our specialist operations policing standards manager, as she takes us through what happened.

I was privileged to be able to attend and speak at the College’s Public Order Public Safety Conference in April. I was joined by colleagues from UK police forces, speakers from the National Police Chiefs' Council , King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust , the  UK Home Office , Serjeants' Inn Chambers , the Crown Prosecution Service and international colleagues from the USA. We came together to hear from policing and our partners as we shared knowledge, updates on legislation, operational learning and to discuss our experiences of public order public safety policing as we all work to keep people safe during national and international events

Topics covered ranged from national public order public safety updates, policing of protests and major events, policing of football events, training and equipment, forensic evidence recovery with police dogs, and stakeholder engagement for national events.

Looking forward

So, what’s next for public order public safety policing, and what work is the College doing to support the public, officers, staff and our partners as the landscape of public order public safety continues to evolve? Just some of the ways in which the College support operational policing of public order public safety events and incidents include:

• Updates to College of Policing guidance and training to reflect recent changes to legislation, keeping officers and staff informed of changes for operational policing of protests and events
• New authorised professional practice (APP) for Police Dogs that outlines how forces can set up and run dog units, setting and embedding standards for these specialist units
• Bi-monthly knowledge sharing events to share learning and good practice relating to public order public safety.

I've also been involved in the work to improve and update our public and personal safety training (PPST), which all forces made a commitment to begin rolling out by April this year. The new training focusses on placing officers in scenarios where they are likely to encounter conflict, placing more focus on communication and de-escalation techniques.

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