Time to recognise professionalism of police

THE police service shouldn’t be afraid of recognising policing skills with a qualification – but should not require new recruits to have a degree before they sign up.

Steve Taylor, Chairman of Essex Police Federation, said the most important thing was for police officers to demonstrate they can carry out the professional skills of the job.

He was responding to comments by Home Secretary Amber Rudd.

She has called for a “culture change” that will lead to a more professional police service across all ranks and roles.

Steve said: “In the Federation we’re professionalising the role of Rep and that has been given a real-time equivalence in terms of a GNVQ at a particular level. I don’t think we can be afraid of translating that professionalism into an academic qualification.

“If we’re saying that as a body we can create these professionals, if we’re moving to a position where we’re reflecting that with an academic qualification, then to me that removes the need for the qualification to get into the service in the first place.

“I think what’s important is the professionalism that you need in order to do the job, adequately reflecting that in the real world. So you’re a police officer, you can demonstrate these skills and we will reflect those skills with this qualification. That, to me, is valuable.

“The other side of that coin is if you need to have these particular academic qualifications in order to get through the door, that I think is damaging because if we can demonstrate that at the end of the process you’ve got these qualifications through the work that you’ve done then you didn’t need the qualifications at the beginning to get in in the first place. Then surely that’s more important?

“We’re constantly reminded that we need to be a reflection of the society that we serve, not everyone in society has a degree or a qualification, that shouldn’t be a bar to them wanting to be a police officer.

“There’s certain prerequisites in terms of language, in terms of written and oral and arithmetic ability, there is a certain level that you have to be able to demonstrate and that’s not wrong, but we are a broad church and we shouldn’t restrict entry to those that can just demonstrate academic excellence.”