PSA President Nick Smart shares a blog at Christmas 2025:
As we approach the end of 2025, once again we reflect on a year of challenge, change and impact for UK policing.
As an association, we’ve been acutely aware of the many pressures facing our members and their teams, but also the incredible impact they have made within the workplace and for wider communities. This impact continues day by day, year on year, despite the challenges we face, and it is something of which we should be extremely proud.
Throughout 2025, our association has focused on our three core strategic priority areas of health and wellbeing, terms and conditions and leadership, governance & culture.
As we approach the end of 2025, once again we reflect on a year of challenge, change and impact for UK policing.
As an association, we’ve been acutely aware of the many pressures facing our members and their teams, but also the incredible impact they have made within the workplace and for wider communities. This impact continues day by day, year on year, despite the challenges we face, and it is something of which we should be extremely proud.
Throughout 2025, our association has focused on our three core strategic priority areas of health and wellbeing, terms and conditions and leadership, governance & culture.
We’ve done our best to have a positive influence in all of these areas on behalf of our members.
Just a small snapshot of some of the work we have delivered this year includes:
- Providing support to superintendents who are under investigation of any kind, through our Panel of Friends and through the provision of legal support.
- Wellbeing support to superintendents, many of whom cannot access help of this kind through their forces, including the provision of psychological risk assessments, which are not currently offered to every superintendent, despite being one of the highest risk roles in policing.
- Representation to superintendents on matters surrounding their pay, pensions and conditions of service – something of critical importance for police officers who have no ability to strike.
- Work with the College of Policing to deliver bespoke CPD and training opportunities for superintendents.
- Widely researched and evidenced responses to all Home Office / College of Policing / HMICFRS / NPCC / IOPC-led consultations.
- Engagement in support of all major national policing working groups and forums.
- An annual conference, bringing together key policing leaders to discuss the major issues impacting policing, and enabling valuable networking and learning opportunities for superintendents.
We’ve done this whilst working within the ever-changing context of UK policing, which has included continued changes to our workforce mix and a reduction in both funding and headcount, ongoing legislative changes and a continued wellbeing crisis.
We’ve also seen societal and political tensions reach critical levels, which have a very real and direct impact on policing and the way our service is viewed by communities.
Alongside this, we have the backdrop of a reform agenda with details still unknown, which could mean seismic changes for the UK policing system.
Whilst many of these issues have been difficult, we must also remember that as ever, and despite this, the positive impact of our service has been huge.
We’ve seen incredible examples of large-scale national and local operations disrupting a huge range of crime types, from serious and organised crime to economic and online harms.
We’ve seen significant sentencing outcomes in high-harm and high-profile cases – the result of tireless work by teams of officers committed to securing justice.
Christmas and New Year is traditionally a time to reflect, and it’s right that we do this for policing.
We’ll never see a ‘quiet’ year in policing – it’s the nature of our work.
We’ll also undoubtedly continue to see change of unmatched scale if the reform agenda delivers to the level that is currently suggested.
Despite this, we must acknowledge and be proud of the fact that we will always perform as a Service that is 100% committed to the public.
We talk a lot about challenge and the negative impact policing can have on our people, and as an association, we will never stop working to address these important issues. But I want to close this year recognising the good. The day to day delivery of work to benefit others and the daily impact our people are making through their efforts.
Thousands of officers and staff will be working this Christmas period whilst others are taking breaks from the stresses and strains of work, and this never goes unnoticed. You are the hidden engine room, working in the background to keep people safe.
A huge thank you to our members and to every member of the police family for the work you do. You should feel rightly proud of the difference you make.
On behalf of everyone at the Police Superintendents’ Association, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
