South Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Alun Michael has defended a decision to buy three garden-style cabins as training rooms for police officers.
The cabins - or pods - are normally to be seen in middle-class suburban gardens, where they provide homeowners with a comfortable place to relax during the summer. But the three units - bought at a cost of £14,000 each - will instead be used as the location for “inspirational” courses given to police officers at a new training centre built on the site of demolished police houses in the grounds of force headquarters at Bridgend.
Not everyone who has heard about the purchase of the pods is impressed, with critical comments having appeared on social media. One message, on a Facebook site for retired South Wales Police officers called Blueprint, states: “It appears that South Wales Police have purchased a number of these ‘relaxation pods’ for staff at HQ. They are £14,000 each. Wonder whose bright idea this was, and yet front line complain of a lack of equipment. There are three of them and Mr Alun Michael was insistent on them being purchased.”
Read more: Leading Welsh academic Richard Wyn Jones attacks Welsh Government funding for universities
Mr Michael said he wasn’t aware of any criticism of the pods on social media, but added: “It doesn’t surprise me. There are always people who will complain about anything new. And they provide value for money. “The meeting pods are part of a police learning centre development at police headquarters which is a major investment in the training of new and existing police officers and staff.
“Compared to providing dedicated meeting spaces within the main building at a cost of £4,135 per square metre, the pods at a cost of £14,000 provide a relatively cheap and simple option which enable small group project work to be developed and maintained. Recruiting additional police officers as well as replacing those who are due to retire means that South Wales Police has to recruit and train around 1,000 new officers and additional PCSOs [Police Community Support Officers] over the next three years.
“The pods will provide necessary working spaces away from the main learning areas which will allow individual and collective learning which is essential to deliver the degree level training to produce a well-educated flexible and responsive workforce of officers and staff who are able to address creatively the issues that matter to the public we all serve.
“Training has been modernised beyond all recognition from years gone by when it was a case of 30 people sitting in a classroom listening to a lecturer. Research shows that providing separate learning areas enhances academic performances so these new facilities will enable us to deliver that high quality training which the public would expect us to provide for our future police officers.”
Mr Michael added: “Of course there are meeting rooms in the headquarters that could be used, but the pods provide a much more suitable learning environment than we’d get by using existing facilities or by putting up a conventional new building at much greater expense.”
