Official inquiry slams police union

Official inquiry slams police union

David Leppard Published: 19 January 2014

A Boris Johnson look-a-like protester joins a Police Federation photocall (Matt Cardy)

THE body that represents 130,000 rank and file police officers is accused of undermining public confidence in the force in a report to be published tomorrow.

A devastating review of the the Police Federation — the “trade union” that lobbies the government on pay and conditions — has found it is divided by bitter faction fighting and “suspicion and distrust” at every level.

A panel led by Sir David Normington, a former head of the Home Office, discovered the body was so poorly run that its leadership did not know how much money it controlled or how many members it had.

It found the federation had lost the confidence of its members and that it had turned in on itself. Having lost its way it has become a “defensive, disjointed and reactive organisation”, the review will say.

But the most significant criticism is expected to focus on the body’s habit of taking