Professional Recovery 374

PROFUPDATE
PROF Update
By Richard Goddard
President, Professional Recovery Operators Federation
By now I’m hopeful that the launch of the Professional
Recovery Operators Standards Executive will be in the public
domain, after being launched at the IVR AGM .
I am positive that PROSE, will become the flag bearer for
NHSS17/17B as the recovery industry’s minimum standard
recognised by our partners in the the emergency services and
adopted by our stakeholders within the independent recovery
industry.
Now, finally the government departments that are
rolling out new legislation, will have a real platform of
communications and education while learning of the risks and
the economic implications faced by the recovery industry.
New innovations on the strategic road network, EVs,
driverless cars development and hydrogen powered vehicles
will affect us all. This platform will allow the recovery industry
to engage with proactive discussions regarding safety standards,
while considering our own economic risk assessments with
appropriate government departments and stakeholders including
the manufacturers that build these modern miracles.
This new, authentic, independent, safety and standards
executive is truly representative of an industry that is uniting behind
NHSS17/17B while raising the bar on safety standards and best
practices.
l National Police Chiefs Council
l National Fire Chiefs Council
l National Highways
l National Tyre Distributors Association
l United Kingdom Rescue Organisation (Chair)
l IVR (Secretariat)
The above organisations have come together to form a unique
national safety and standards executive, it’s another historic change
that will help us to meet the demands that accompany generational
changes.
UKRO’s Ian Greenman accepted the nomination to become Chair
of PROSE and was unanimously elected! Mary Edwards, IVR was
nominated for secretariat of PROSE and was unanimously elected
to the role.
UKRO’s Ian Greenman stated that he was humbled to be elected
Chair of such an important group, but the truth is we are very lucky
to have him!! I find it incredible, neither UKRO or the Fire Service
have been invited onto any previous standards platform. With
the evolution of EV’s and hydrogen powered vehicles and the risks
involved with recovering and storing them , input from NFCC and
UKRO will be vital and respected!
I am delighted PROSE, will fill the
current void, raise standards and
collectively adopt and promote
NHSS17/17B as a minimum standard. A
comprehensive disclosure of PROSE,
will follow in due course.
I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
Richard Goddard.
Proud President, Professional
Recovery Operators Federation.
Thanks Mick!
I often talk about facing generational changes within the recovery
industry.
The hardest generational change we face in this is industry is
when good people leave it. You can raise rates, buy new trucks,
and invest in new premises, but good old fashioned proper
recovery personnel (men) are impossible to replace.
In the two years I’ve come to know Mick Burke, Head of Vehicle
Recovery in the Met Police (of the MET POLICE), in my opinion
he’s been the best of the best, but his retirement from the Met,
is a generational change that will be hard to overcome for the
Met the recovery industry and I hazard a guess most of all Terry
Hunt NPCC lead for Vehicle Recovery.
How can I say that after only two years of knowing him, well it’s
easy, what he doesn’t know about the recovery industry is not
worth knowing. I’ve learnt more about the game from Mick in two
years, than anyone else in the 43 years I’ve been in it.
His dedicated straight-talking experience and wisdom, will be
sadly missed and impossible to replace. His experienced advice,
not just about police contracts, but how to approach, people in
office and speak to the hierarchy, how to deal with difficult issues
was an education, in itself.
When he officially bollocked me for using the F word in an
Email. It told me, that offend or please, Mick Burke does the right
thing and sticks to it. Without Micks input I doubt we would have
delivered the statutory fees increase regardless of the other
parties who have tried to claim credit for it.
The Met Police contract is the best run police contract in the
country and I’ve openly suggested that it should be the blue
print for police contracts on a National basis - it’s just my biased
opinion but I’ll keep repeating it. It would make Micks Legacy
complete because he does things properly.
As we move into a new generational era in police contracts,
Mick will be moving on, but he leaves a recovery industry all the
better for knowing him and working with him.
Thank you Mick good luck, in the future and don’t be a
stranger. You’ll always be a strategic partner of the Professional
Recovery Operators Federation!
I’ll leave you with this one memory of Mick. Just before my first
NPCC, I had an air bubble trapped under my chest, I couldn’t
breath and fell to the floor. Mick was with me and ran into the
hotel I thought to get some help, but he returned with Derek
Firminger, and as I looked up at them gasping for air, I realised
right then and there, that only a true Tottenham supporter would
have returned with a witness instead of a doctor.
14 PROFESSIONAL RECOVERY MAGAZINE
14 News PROF.indd 1 01/03/2023 16:23