An agree­ment on the con­duct of griev­ance pro­ce­dures for pris­ons and po­lice of­fi­cers has been for­malised with the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO), ac­cord­ing to a state­ment is­sued by the CPO’s Of­fice.

On No­vem­ber 15, 2022, Com­man­der Dr Daryl Din­di­al signed Mem­o­ran­da of Agree­ments (MoA) with the As­so­ci­a­tions rep­re­sent­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Prison Ser­vice, for the es­tab­lish­ment of for­mal Griev­ance Pro­ce­dures for their Of­fi­cers, gov­ern­ing is­sues which fall with­in the statu­to­ry re­mit of the Per­son­nel De­part­ment.

“The sign­ing of the MoAs re­in­forced the State’s com­mit­ment to treat­ing with dis­sat­is­fac­tion among Of­fi­cers caused by the in­ac­cu­rate in­ter­pre­ta­tion and ad­min­is­tra­tion of their terms and con­di­tions, and un­due de­lays in the res­o­lu­tion of com­plaints made,” the re­lease from the CPO’s of­fice ex­plained.

Some 100 per­sons—in­clud­ing the lead­er­ship of the Po­lice and Prison Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tions; and se­lect­ed ad­min­is­tra­tive staff in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty—are ex­pect­ed to un­der­go a com­pre­hen­sive train­ing pro­gramme to sen­si­tise and ed­u­cate them on the pur­pose and us­age of the Griev­ance Pro­ce­dures, pri­or to their im­ple­men­ta­tion in March 2023. 

“I en­vi­sion that the train­ing will al­low for a deep­er un­der­stand­ing and ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the for­mal pro­ce­dure to be adopt­ed by the per­sons charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of re­solv­ing dis­putes in a time­ly and ef­fi­cient man­ner, there­by min­imis­ing er­rors in ad­min­is­tra­tion,” CPO Com­man­der Din­di­al not­ed.

Chief Personnel Officer, Commander Dr Daryl Dindial (seated right); and President of the TTPS Social & Welfare Association, Ag. ASP Gideon Dickson (seated left), and the Association’s Executive, at the signing of the MOA on Grievance Procedures, at the Offices of the Personnel Department, 15 November 2022. [Image courtesy CPO’s Office]

He warned that if mat­ters are re­ferred to the Per­son­nel De­part­ment or the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance with­out be­ing prop­er­ly ad­dressed by Ad­min­is­tra­tion, or if they are not with­in the Statu­to­ry Re­mit of the Per­son­nel De­part­ment, they will be re­turned to the par­ties to be rec­ti­fied. 

The CPO al­so stat­ed that there will be no op­por­tu­ni­ty for the lead­er­ship at the var­i­ous lev­els to evade their re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in ad­dress­ing griev­ances that im­pact the lives and well-be­ing of po­lice and pris­ons of­fi­cers.

“I ac­knowl­edge the po­ten­tial im­pact these Pro­ce­dures can have in ad­dress­ing mat­ters of con­cern for our Po­lice and Pris­ons Of­fi­cers,” Com­man­der Didi­al said.

“Keen aware­ness by Ad­min­is­tra­tors of the ap­pli­ca­tion of terms and con­di­tions of Of­fi­cers is a ba­sic re­quire­ment to al­low for griev­ances to be min­imised and re­solved,” he added.

The CPO rec­og­nized the role of the Po­lice and Pris­ons As­so­ci­a­tions in ad­vo­cat­ing for the es­tab­lish­ment of for­mal Griev­ance Pro­ce­dures, based on their as­sess­ment of the many is­sues im­pact­ing the well-be­ing of their mem­bers.