POA Circulars

Please bring the contents of this circular to the attention of all POA members

Please find attached Special NEC minutes for 8th February 2022 and NEC minutes for 9th February 2022 for your information.

BBC Radio 4's current affairs documentary series 'File on 4' is making a 40-minute programme to be broadcast on the 15th March about mental illness in prisons and the problems transferring prisoners to hospitals in the community. 

Please find attached NEC minutes for 26th January 2022 for your information.

Further to POA Circular 116/2021 which outlined the NEC initial view to the Prison White Paper as set out by Government on 7th December 2021, the National Chairman and I have now sent in a response to the formal consultation, which ends on the 4th February 2022 (Please find attached).

Please bring the contents of this circular to the attention of all POA members

Please find attached NEC minutes for 12th January 2022 for your information.

The POA urge members to write to their local MP and ask them to support Grahame Morris MP’s Prisons (Violence) Bill, aka the “Safe Inside Law” which returns to Parliament on 25th February 2022.

As members are aware the POA Health and Safety Whitley Committee have been campaigning for a menopause policy for members to be produced by HMPPS. HMPPS have now realised they need a policy and work has started on producing it.

As you are aware POA Circular 114/2021 requested expressions of interest to attend the above training. Unfortunately, due to the current Omicron variant and related problems, it has been decided to postpone this training.

Representing over 30,000 Prison, Correctional and Secure Psychiatric Workers, the POA is the largest UK Union in this sector, able to trace its roots back more than 100 years.