Police dumb down entry rules to lure recruits

POLICE forces are dumbing down education standards in a desperate bid to meet Boris Johnson’s pledge to recruit 20,000 extra officers, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

New schemes aimed at fasttracking graduates and enrolling police officers in on-the-job degrees have been shelved in favour of a ‘blue collar first’ approach.

By last January, all 43 police forces in England and Wales were supposed to ensure that applicants were either graduates or non-graduates who agreed to study for three years to obtain a degree in professional policing.

But many have scrapped this to focus on recruitment programmes aimed at a wider pool of schoolleavers. Just ten of the 43 forces have introduced the Degree Holder Entry Programme, while 22 have started the Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship, where new officers juggle traditional training with academic theory.

Last night a police source said that while the target for recruiting new officers was 20,000 by March 2023, constabularies need to find 28,000 to compensate for officers signing off or retiring.

They added: ‘ Chief Constables have crunched the numbers and realised t hey’ve got to t arget school-leavers who don’t want to continue their education, even if that means missing out on a small number of academically brighter, more ambitious applicants.’

The College of Policing said: ‘Forces are now taking a phased approach to i mplementing the new training.’