Inside the world of public order policing

At this year’s Emergency Services Show, Laura Douglas and Andy Hunt from the College of Policing spoke on the Protecting the Protectors stage about public order policing and what it takes to face public disorder when it comes to training and equipment that works in the most challenging of environments.

Laura Douglas is a temporary superintendent working for Northumbria Police. She is seconded to the College of policing where she is the policing standards manager for specialist operations – pops policing, public order, public safety or POPS for short. Laura was joined on stage by Andy Hunt, a seconded officer at the college from Norfolk Constabulary. He is a public order officer and has been a police officer for 17 years. He started his secondment six months ago and works with Laura.

Having completed his public order course back in 2011, Andy has a long and varied experience of responding to POPS events. As well as being deployed on large scale public order events within Norfolk he’s held national roles, including being part of the policing efforts for the wedding of Harry and Megan at Windsor Castle.

He is also a public order Public Safety Advisor, formerly referred to as a tactical advisor, where his job is to advise public order commanders on tactics and legislation and, he said, “essentially be a critical friend.” Laura said that advice is invaluable during incidents.

In this session at the show, Laura and Andy focused on the equipment they need to be prepared to be in POPS situations. Laura shared her experience of joining the force.

“The day I joined Northumbria, you got two bags. One bag was my kit with my uniform in it and the other one was my public order public safety kit. And you got trained from day one at both at training school.”

She is keen to remind the audience that her work isn’t all about public disorder, citing her recent deployment to the Great North Run which attracts huge numbers of people watching the half marathon through Newcastle and Gateshead. “It’s about keeping people safe,” she adds.

The work that Laura and Andy are doing at the College is focused on the policy that underpins the approach to POPS and the professional standards and development needs of officers, making sure it is current and reflects learning from experience, including that of the 2024 disorder following the murder of three young girls in Southport. Police officers who complete the POPS training to become accredited in this space must also keep up their continuous professional development (CPD) with regular refresher training.

“We practice large scale scenario, which are generally based on the current theme of public order within the country. As part of that, we have to be exposed to all the tactics, and that includes petrol.”

He showed the audience photographs of him in this training scenario. “So that’s me there in training being petrol bombed within a controlled environment. There’ll be lots of people running around in the background with thousands of fire extinguishers and lots of petrol bombs set up. And we literally we just have to walk through fire because we tell our officers in training to trust the kit and trust the equipment.”

Going on to look in detail at the kit they wear for their POPS role, they showed how flame retardant undergarments are the foundation of the protection that sees padded body armour added to provide protection from projectiles like bricks but not bullets. “This kit and the shields do not offer ballistic protection. So if we’re ever faced with a firearms threat, we will get the hell out of there pretty quickly, and then it’ll become a firearms operation,” explains Andy.

With the addition of a protective helmet and flame retardant coated boots and laces, the POPS officer is taught tactics for different scenarios. They work in units of 18 officers comprising Police Constables and sergeants with an inspector in charge. For a high level incident, Andy says: “the expectation is, generally, we’d want a whole unit kitted in seven minutes.” Laura describes a team approach to checking the kit, where trust and looking after one another is at its core. “I’ve got to have confidence in what I’m wearing is going to actually help me, and let me do my job.”

Andy describes public order policing as a collective tactic and explains: “it’s not much good you being on your own with your kit, because you need to meet up with the rest of your unit and deploy together in a vehicle. So you may as well store your kit centrally at the police station and then all descend on rendezvous point, then you can kit up and deploy from there.”

And when it comes to welfare, Laura says that is the commander’s responsibility.

“I was a public order public safety commander last year in the disorder through the summer, right in the middle of July and August, it’s very hot. Imagine wearing this in very warm days, even in Newcastle. So how do I ensure the welfare of my officers?”

She talks about welfare plans, describing how hydration is critical to officers on the ground. “It’s my job to see if I can rotate the officers, get them water to refill the bottles that are attached to their belts.” These are prosaic problems that exist in challenging environments and Laura shares how they have to be creative, “because it’s back to how do we protect the protectors? if we can look after the individuals that are protecting the public, they can do their job better and that’s what it’s all about.”

Andy added that there’s a lot of learning from last year’s disorder and that’s what the College is using to develop new ways of working that will feed into authorised practice and training which is at the heart of public order policing.

To hear the full session from The Emergency Services Show, listen to this episode on the For Every Response podcast.

Andy Hunt is part of a webinar panel on 6 November discussing public order policing and how technology is improving situational awareness. Registration is open now.