More detectives should be home grown

FORCES should encourage their own officers to become detectives – or risk the posts being filled by direct entry candidates with no experience of being a bobby on the beat.

That is the view of Essex Police Federation Chairman Steve Taylor, who admits that enticing people into detective work is a difficult problem to solve.

He said: “If we could answer the problem of how to get people into detective work we’d solve a lot of ills in the organisation.

“I think the complexity of detective work is increasing specialist as more complex investigations come to light, whether they are financial or sexual or relationship based. So maybe that’s a reason why we struggle to get people to follow that through as a career path.

“Maybe there’s a lack of visible detective role models amongst the rank and file, with it becoming more specialist, with them having their own hopes, their own remits, maybe they work less frequently with day to day response shifts, so the opportunity to see them is missed?

“It’s important that we are able to grow our own detectives, if you like, because the door to direct entry at the detective level is already open, and that undermines the under-skilled warranted officer that is at the heart of British policing, making it the best in the world.

“We are keen that we do grow our own detectives and support the organisation as it tries to do that.”

However, Steve said Essex Police Federation did not support the idea of giving extra money to entice people into specialist roles, such as detective.

He explained: “Generally speaking, we should resist, because while others are valued financially, others are devalued. While some are given opportunities to earn more money by taking on more risk, people that choose not to do that, in some way, are considered second-class then and don’t receive the same pay that we should all be receiving for doing the job.

“We understand the drive to look into it. We understand that those among us take on more risk, work more anti-social hours, and get compensated at the same level as someone else.

“But if the only way of advancing them and earning more money is to take on more risk, you deny those that don’t want to, you deny those that don’t want to specialise, that want to be a career PC working on shift. So it is divisive, and we’re sceptical that we can make it work.”