CONFERENCE


Flexible working and job sharing ‘key’ to attracting investigators


H Assistant Met Commissioner Helen Ball


You don’t need a degree to join policing


T


he idea that new police recruits need a degree is a “dangerous myth and demonstrably false”,


Met Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball told a panel discussing online training. She praised the adaptability of the


police service through the pandemic, particularly in the training of recruits, which switched to online. “We’ve kept the show on the road during the biggest transformation in recruit training in years,” she said. But AC Bell disagreed with an


audience question put to her at the PFEW conference about the perception that police officers need a degree to join these days. This was a “dangerous myth”, she argued. Later at the event, DCC Bernie


O’Reilly, who heads the College of Policing, said he felt police training was of a high standard and worthy of a degree. He argued it was right to offer that formal qualification, pointing out that retiring officers were “struggling to put together a CV” but the formal degree qualification could help address that. PFEW National Board member


Gemma Fox sounded a note of caution around online training. Calling for a “meaningful evaluation” of its effectiveness, she added: “We don’t want it to become an efficiency tool to save money for forces. We need to understand the effects of online learning and to make sure officers have the right skills for the rest of their career.” Her colleague Dave Bamber,


national Federation Lead for Professional Development and issues related to the College of Policing, asked: “Has virtual meant members have been merely taught things and not quite developed? If that is the case, it isn’t the officers’ fault – and it should be acknowledged as that.”


16 I POLICE I AUGUST 2021


igh workloads, complex cases and a £1,200 pay cut to boot – it’s little wonder CID has been struggling to


attract volunteers, conference heard. A report from Her Majesty’s


Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) four years ago found that 22 per cent of detective posts were vacant. The report made it clear that urgent work was needed to restore the appeal of this once sought-after role. DCC Jason Hogg, the National


Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) lead for investigator resilience, has been overseeing the development of new specialist routes through the Recruitment and Retention of Investigators Working Group. He said: “Every force has developed an action plan for consideration by HMIC and we’ve encouraged forces to provide target bonus payments. A number are doing these bonuses very well.” Mr Hogg’s own force, Thames Valley,


once consistently had 50 detective vacancies. Now it has only three. He talked about work promoting the detective role and covering the costs of books for officers studying and giving time off – plus a bonus payment.


He has developed a national staff bank pilot in Wales, where retired officers


Jason Hogg


are brought in to tackle non-recent investigations. This is “working really well” and Mr Hogg would like to see it rolled out nationally. He added: “We promoted flexi working and job sharing. This is one of the reasons we have more than 50 per cent women applying for our roles.” The ‘Investing in Investigators’ session,


hosted by Glyn Pattinson of the Police Federation National Detectives’ Forum, also heard about the new Oscar Kilo toolkit that could make a huge positive impact on the emotional wellbeing of detectives, reducing leavers.


Robocop is not the future of policing T


echnology will never be a replacement for the intuition of police officers, a senior executive


for Axon told the conference. Alex Lowe, sales director for the tech


company best known as the maker of Taser, shared a platform with PFEW National Chair John Apter. He assured delegates: “Without a


shadow of a doubt, the most critical part of the role is that personal observation, experience, knowledge and insight that police officers have. Technology should never take over that. “What it should do is support officers


by doing the repetitive and administrative tasks. It should free up the officer to do what he or she has been hired to do – the future doesn’t have Robocop in it as far as I’m concerned.” John pointed out that when speed cameras were introduced there were


concerns that some of the benefits of police officer interaction could be lost. He said: “You stop someone for speeding but, if other things jump out at you criminally related, you are going to deal with it. We don’t want technology to overtake the intuition of a police officer.” The National Chair praised Taser and


body-worn video (BWV) as vital kit that had transformed officer safety. “BWV won’t prevent every assault, but it helps us to bring the violence we face to the attention of courts and that helps justice. It also captures officers’ injuries,” he said. The Federation believes Taser is not a


“nice to have” but an essential tool for de- escalating incidents. Mr Lowe said in his view it’s “crazy” to


think most members of the public can have cameras in their personal vehicles but “we’ve got police officers expected to perform dangerous duties without them”.


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