THE CHAIR ASKS
1 What is the Uplift Programme?
John Apter (JA): A warm welcome Janette. Our colleagues will have heard things about the uplift programme, but can you explain exactly what it is and what we want to achieve? Janette McCormick (JM): Thank you John, this goes back to July 2019 when the Prime Minister made his announcement of an additional 20,000 officers. Obviously, that came on the back of a decade of austerity when we lost as many officers. I got a call to ask if I would be the programme director working across 43 forces, the College of Policing and the Home Office. With the leavers that we have, we need to recruit around 53,000 officers over three years. That’s a massive surge in the service but it’s also about growing well and becoming a more representative workforce. JA: What’s been your journey in policing and how did that lead you to this role now? JM: At 13, I visited Eccles Police Station in Greater Manchester to have a look around. My dad was a solicitor representing suspects, so he saw both sides. I joined the police straight from university on the accelerated promotion. I was posted to Salford and for my first arrest my dad was the duty solicitor! I did 20 years in uniform and some work in specialist ops, I’ve got two children so for a while I went part time. Then as a chief officer, I went over to Cheshire and became the Chief Constable. I did a short secondment at the College of Policing before my current role. I have 30 years in policing and still love it. I still learn something new every day.
2 Challenges of working with 43 forces and stakeholders
JA: As Programme Director you’re working with 43 forces, all with different priorities and with their own chief constables and commissioners – has this caused you issues? JM: The forces recruit the officers – we don’t do it centrally. That was always the principle because they know what their needs are. Local communities are all different and it would be wrong to impose a one size fits all. The strength of the National Police Chiefs Council is that we come together in collaboration and what I’ve seen is that
chiefs have really wanted to step up, to look at their local needs are and recruit from communities. It’s a challenge but also an opportunity. We’re doing an online assessment now and seeing a real improved performance particularly in relation to our BAME officers/candidates.
3 How can we maintain high standards of new recruits?
JA: I’ll admit I was concerned about the online approach to recruiting because I thought it would water down our standards. Can you reassure our members, who are proud to be police officers, that in our desire to get many new people in, we’ll not lower our standards? JM: The advantage of having a serving police officer leading the uplift is that I also want those high standards. We have to grow quickly, but we have to grow right. We have maintained and monitored our standards, not just through the selection process – we’re also working with our new cohort and asking what the job is like for them. This is important because we’ve got to retain those officers as well. JA: My colleagues will be thinking that ultimately what they want is for new officers to be credible, ready to go, properly tutored and the best they can be. How attractive is the job of a police officer to those high-quality candidates? JM: We get over 10,000 applications a month on average – way more than we have jobs. Some of those will not be eligible to
join, but policing is still a really attractive job and we should feel proud to be part of it. There are barriers for different people. It’s not just ethnic minorities, it’s also people with disabilities, people of different sexual orientation – we’ve done a lot of work to encourage people to declare their protected characteristics as it allows us to put the right policies in place. For people to disclose things about themselves they first must feel they can trust us in terms of how we use that data.
4 The challenge of growing a more diverse workforce
JA: Let’s touch on black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) recruitment. If policing is to move forward and be truly reflective, we’ve got to reach all parts of our communities and that means some people who haven’t ever seen policing as something for them. How are we doing in this regard? JM: In February, we topped 10,000 BAME officers for the first time. I think we’ve got 14 forces that are recruiting in line with their populations. It would be wrong to say it is not a challenge. At 7.5 per cent BAME recruitment we are still a long way off the current census at 14 per cent. We’ve got a lot to do to change perceptions of policing in black communities, particularly after the events of 2020 with Black Lives Matters and George Floyd. We’re working hard to understand those barriers, and this is also where your officers and members can help.
Continued on p18 >>>
APRIL 2021 | POLICE | 17
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