Plans for £350k direct entry detective scheme are 'not developed'
Training may not actually last 12 weeks and no decision taken on policy over NIE re-takesThere is no firm plan in place about how the new £350,000 direct entry detective scheme will run.
But despite the announcement stating the recruits will become detectives after 12 weeks of training – Police Oracle understands that is not definitely the case.
The funding accounced is for the development of its concept – not to pay for the training of the recruits. Issues such as how the substantive scheme will actually funded are still to be resolved.
Several forces in England have launched direct entry detective schemes of their own in recent months but yesterday’s announcement that there will be just three months of training appears similar to the Met’s.
Forces including Essex, Kent, Hampshire, Suffolk and Thames Valley have introduced such schemes but all require recruits to spend some time in uniform before being fast tracked to CID.
A College of Policing analysis of the different programmes was requested by chiefs earlier this year but is not believed to be complete.
Chief Constable Matt Jukes told the recent Police Federation Conference that this issue was being looked at by government however the Home Office would not confirm this is the case when asked by Police Oracle. The department referred our reporter to Police Now for questions about its structure.
A spokeswoman for the organisation said: “What happens about taking the exam twice is going to be part of our development, we will work out what happens. This money is to develop the programme and that will definitely be one of the discussions.”
Asked why it had announced a 12-week training period, she said that it the hoped-for timeframe. “We don’t know it will definitely be 12 weeks. Without the programme being developed we can’t say for sure, [but] that’s from our initial thoughts,” she said.
Under the existing Police Now graduate scheme for constables, recruits have six-weeks of intensive training before a 28-day immersion their force before becoming independent neighbourhood officers. They complete a two-year probation period while preparing evidence based policing reports for their peers.
The Home Office says Police Now was chosen to deliver the scheme rather than the College of Policing because the charity approached the department with proposals and has delivered graduate training previously.
Responding to the initial announcement, Karen Stephens, from the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: “This news is an insult to the experienced hard-working detectives that we have left in service.
"Detective policing is in crisis and our colleagues are struggling to cope with heavy workloads and increasing demand but another ‘direct entry scheme’ is not the answer.
“The service and the public deserve better than detective officers who will be trained ‘in a matter of months’.”
Policing Minister Nick Hurd said yesterday: "I'm keen to get more new detectives trained up, so I'm delighted to support this innovative Police Now programme, which will bring in new talent, train detectives in a matter of months and complement other measures that the government and police are taking to keep the public safe."
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