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Media

Important information re President Trump visit.


Colleagues,

As you are no doubt aware the most powerful man in the world is visiting the UK.

President Trump will be visiting three locations in the UK and one in Scotland. The itinerary as you can imagine is changing on a daily even hourly basis.

To put things into perspective for you, and remember this is only a three day visit, the current budget for the visit is in excess of £12m.

The bulk of requests for mutual aid have come from Thames Valley Police as as a result of this Merseyside has been asked to provide 9 Psu's not including specialist officers.

The request only landed last week and in consultation with Merseyside Police Federation Mr Critchley made the decision to blanket cancel rest-days from 11-14th July.

It is an exigency and those Officers back filling for those deployed out of force come under the umbrella of the same exigency.

As he stated in his intouch document this decision wasn't taken lightly and every other possible option was explored.

The decision not to pay the overnight allowance for the deployment had nothing to do with Merseyside Chief officers this was a decision taken by the Gold commander in charge of the operation in Thames Valley. Despite numerous representations by the PFEW they have and still are refusing to budge on this decision as they believe the officers deployed are not going to be held in reserve.

Locally we have engaged and negotiated with our chief officers and subsequently Mr Critchley and the Chief have decided that despite the decision not to pay the allowance our own force will pay every Merseyside Officer deployed on mutual aid for President Trumps Visit the overnight allowance. They have agreed with Merseyside Federations view that the allowance should be paid.

This is why originally when the intouch was sent out which was time specific it couldn't be communicated because at that time the decision still hadn't been confirmed. During the period post the first intouch is when we have worked with our chief officers to obtain it for you.

The picture of the deployment is changing still as this is being typed. As a result of more requests a second intouch has now been sent out cancelling rest days for the period 15-16th July also. This is as a result of Police Scotland now requesting further mutual aid over the weekend.

Originally we had not been asked to provide assistance and hence the rest days hadn't been cancelled.

Up to now we have been working with the FRU to fill the requirement with volunteers first, however if there is a shortfall then you can be ordered to go outside of Merseyside on mutual aid.

We are hoping to avoid this if we can. Any welfare issues regarding any deployments should be directed in the first instance to the FRU should they occur.

We are still awaiting confirmation of the accommodation location from Thames Valley as soon as Force Ops are aware this will be communicated.

Dave Lowe
Secretary
Merseyside Police Federation