COLLEGE OF POLICING
PDR – WHY IT DESERVES A SECOND LOOK
Professional Development Reviews, or PDRs as they are better known, are quite often met with groans. So why is policing trying to raise the profile of PDR? Asks Kathleen Harrison-Carroll, Professional Development Manager, Leadership & Workforce Development, College of Policing
The National Talent Development Strategy (NTDS), published in January 2025, is intended to enable a more consistent approach towards talent development for all. To help forces implement the NTDS, the College of Policing has created national guidance on how to develop and implement PDR, and how these conversations equally benefit individuals and organisations.
Good PDR is about people, and not solely a process. It is a relationship, a regular conversation and an opportunity for recognition, and a chance to review and reposition goals, resolve challenges or issues, or discuss learning and development. The focus isn’t just for those wanting promotion, or to tick a performance box. It’s also about creating an environment which nurtures open communication, growth, accountability and support. The College of Policing guidance helps clarify what professional development is, identifies what supports the effectiveness of PDR, and highlights what helps it to work in practice. The guidance explains the purpose, including how PDR underpins specific processes in policing such as the identification and development of talent, and promotion and progression opportunities. It supports a people-centred approach to professionalism and continuous development. A PDR conversation should also support wellbeing, and help you to take ownership of, and explore your career development. Oscar Kilo’s 2025 recent National
Police Wellbeing Service (NPWS) survey involved 40,000 participants from 33 forces. The results reinforced the value of peer-to peer discussions, with 65 per cent identifying their line manager as their most trusted support pathway.
48 | POLICE | OCTOBER | 2025
The survey indicated a need to build strong line management support, with 55 per cent of staff reporting feeling fatigued and physically exhausted by their work ‘often or always’, while 45 per cent felt burnt out by their job. Clearly, the survey emphasised the need for further employee support in visible operational frontline roles. PDR conversations offer the opportunity to provide this vital policing workforce support, increase confidence and give greater clarity of expectations about roles. When held, these are often by someone who is already a ‘supportive go-to’ person.
A line manager needs to recognise the impact of burnout issues on health, morale and performance, and the risks of not making the time for PDR. Also, PDRs help you understand and contribute to defining objectives, evidence that you have achieved them, and you are as equipped, credible, competent and confident as possible to undertake your role. The key aim is to ‘reset’ PDR in policing,
and to move away from the previously held poor perception of the process. We want to encourage a positive cultural change which recognises the benefits and value of effective PDR, both for individuals and forces.
Considerable research underpinned development of the PDR guidance, which showed well-structured review conversations play a crucial role in empowering individuals. This increases engagement and retention and can drive individual and organisational success. You may be thinking I don’t need a PDR. Or I am comfortable in my role, not looking for progression and don’t have the time anyway. However, would you not benefit from some additional recognition, from clarity
of the expectations of you, or to consider and plan towards your future – within or external to policing? It is a chance to review workloads, your own priorities, organisational objectives, and accountabilities, and to consider how best to maintain your skills and competence. Ideally, they will be captured, even in bullet point style as a note of the outcomes and be the basis of your next conversation. There is no need for PDR conversations to be onerous.
Click on this link to find out more: Professional development review (PDR) | College of Policing.
“Frameworks matter. Guidance helps. But the real game-changer for PDR is cultural change. “If the conversation feels like a tick-box exercise, it won’t stick. If it feels like part of the day-to-day fabric of policing, it will. That shift depends on leaders at every level showing that PDR is about people, not paperwork. “When managers make time
for open, honest conversations, recognising effort, tackling challenges, supporting wellbeing, and exploring future goals; PDR becomes something to look forward to, not avoid. “The message is simple: embed PDR in culture, and improvements in performance, morale and retention will follow. Without cultural change, PDR risks being just another process which is why it has failed to embed in Policing for so long.”
Paul Matthews, PFEW National Board member
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