BRITISH TRANSPORT POLICE invite TCM to Establish Internal Mediation Scheme

The following is taken from an extract in a recent People Management Magazine article.

Transport police learn to mediate

Programme is designed to create a more open culture. 

The British Transport Police (BTP) is to launch a mediation programme modelled on a successful project at Kent Police.

The programme is designed to create a more open culture at the BTP, which has traditionally been strongly focused on targets and performance, said Wendy Tull, head of leadership, training and diversity at the BTP and formerly at Kent Police.

"The programme is about developing people management skills among more people across the organisation," she said.

Under the programme, set to launch in May, 450 managers will receive basic mediation skills training, with the possibility of upgrading to a certificate in mediation.

All 15 HR managers at the BTP will be trained to certificate level and will use their new skills to deal with workplace conflicts before they reach employment tribunal stage.

Tull, who developed the mediation programme at Kent Police, said the two schemes were similar but the BTP programme had been tweaked to accommodate a much larger and more dispersed workforce.

"This programme will have a robust structure that covers the whole country," she said of the BTP project.

Tull said she expected the number of conflicts and grievance claims to go up at first after the programme was put in place.

"At Kent we found there was an increase in the number of claims to start with because people realised there was another dimension to conflict and grievance procedures. But it levelled out after a while," she said.

"I think it's about people feeling more comfortable about raising issues," she said. "If they recognise that there are different ways of resolving things and if they didn't previously have confidence in the dispute resolution process, then I would expect the number of claims to rise to a degree."

Source: People Management Magazine 23 February 2006.

TCM has already established mediation schemes within Merseyside Police and Kent Police. We also support mediation as external mediators within half a dozen other UK Forces. The new BTP contract secures TCM's position as the leading provider of mediation and dispute resolution services to the UK's Police Forces at a time of great change and potential national re-organisation.

Furthermore, TCM have established an innovative Neighbourhood Policing Model called "FAIR Policing" incorporating best practice from mediation and restorative justice/conferencing. TCM's FAIR policing model has been piloted successfully within Kent Police and is due to be rolled out across the Force during 2006.