End all-graduate police training, Braverman is told

Policing chiefs urge Home Secretary to rethink policy to boost numbers on beat and expand recruits pool

POLICING chiefs are urging Suella Braverman to ditch a blanket requirement for all officers to have degrees.

Sixteen police and crime commissioners (PCCs) have written to the Home Secretary to warn her recruits are spending so much time studying under the all-graduate system that up to 10 per cent are in classrooms rather than on the front line fighting crime.

And they say they are losing out on new recruits from the military, officers who have worked as special constables or PCSOs and older people without a degree seeking a career change.

They are urging Mrs Braverman to change the regulations so forces can still use the “traditional” training route under which new officers are on the beat after 20 weeks at police college.

Matthew Scott, the PCC for Kent, who organised the letter, said: “We are turning away perfectly good people because we have decided you need a degree. There are many fine police officers who have never had a degree.”

It is believed Mrs Braverman is sympathetic and is concerned about the “over-academisation” of policing. A number of chief constables are also understood to back the PCCs’ call.

It comes at a critical time when forces are seeking to hit their recruitment targets in the last year of the 20,000-officer uplift in England and Wales.

The new regime means any officer completing the three-year probation needs a graduate-level qualification.

This can be done by having a degree on entry or studying for it once in the job under the PEQF (Policing Education Qualifications Framework.

In their letter the 16 PCCs , more than a third of the national total, warn: “The extraction rates of PEQF are significant, especially for smaller forces. Rather than being out on the street, as much as 10 per cent of their front-line capability will be in the classroom, not on the frontline.

“There needs to be a more flexible approach. We need to allow local police forces the choice of having IPLDP+ [the previous training structure] and PEQF courses available to new entrants.

“This would remove the effective need for a police officer to have a degree at the end of their training from next year, whilst supporting local accountability and decision making. It would give better options to help recruit a wider range of people with suitable experience, including the military, serving Specials and PCSOs, or people who are seeking a career change, more quickly.”

The PCCs represent forces across England and Wales and include Kent, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Gloucestershire, Dorset, Hampshire, Bedfordshire, Humberside, Surrey, Thames Valley, Warwickshire, Essex, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Cleveland.