Dear Members,
If your firm has decided to temporarily withdraw face to face services in the police station, or is considering this step, we recommend the managing partner, or crime team leader seek further information from your local police force. Employers will be aware they have a duty under s.2 Health Safety at Work Act 1974 to review the safety of their staff and agents during the pandemic. Decisions should be based on the best possible evidence.
I attach a template letter that I recommend each firm adopts and sends to their Commissioner or Chief Constable as the case may be. The letter has been prepared with the assistance of Andrew Broome of VHS Fletchers (to whom I am indebted), who specialises in prosecutions under the Act.
If we seek to establish ways of working remotely we must all be proactive and show we are taking our duties seriously.
If you are not in a position of management please can you raise it internally. The more firms who raise this issue the more likely it is that we will effect change.
Reports are coming in that other forces are starting to negotiate safer ways of working but there is a long way to go. We have had little from the Metropolitan Police.
If post is available to you, letters for the Metropolitan Police should be sent to New Scotland Yard.
I would welcome any contact email address if people have access to officers in command. I am currently trying to obtain further information.
Enquiries can be sent in online to a general inbox,
Kind regards,
Mark Troman
Vice President LCCSA
PO BOX 72880
LONDON
N2 2EY