The amount of refresher safety training officers receive every year is a postcode lottery \u2013 with the amount of entirely dependent on where officers are based.<\/p>\n
In Essex, officers get six hours\u2019 training every year, a Freedom of Information Act request has revealed \u2013 one of the lowest amounts in the country.<\/p>\n
The highest amount is up to 20 hours a year, with the average of forces who responded to the FOI at 9.5 hours.<\/p>\n
So why are forces giving their officers such a varying degree of safety training? And why is there not a national standard that all the country\u2019s officers receive?<\/p>\n
The College of Policing sets standards for the learning, delivery and assessment of personal safety training across England and Wales based on the 2009 ACPO Guidance on Personal Safety Training.<\/p>\n
That document states \u2013 in bold \u2013 that \u201cas a minimum, forces must ensure that staff receive assessed refresher and development training on an annual basis, unless an auditable risk assessment clearly identifies why this frequency is not necessary for a particular role.\u201d<\/p>\n
It gives no minimum time amounts for officers to receive. Or indeed a recommended set time. And it seems forces have taken that as an excuse to wildly vary what they provide to their officers.<\/p>\n
Of the 40 forces that responded to the Freedom of Information request, officers in Cambridgeshire Constabulary are given the most safety training at a maximum of 20 hours \u2013 although even here the figure can be as low as four hours a year depending on the role of the officer.<\/p>\n
After Cambridgeshire, City of London and Staffordshire Police provide the most safety training at 16 hours per year.<\/p>\n
They are followed by Cleveland, Derbyshire, Devon and Cornwall, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, the Met, North Wales, Northumbria, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Surrey, Sussex and Warwickshire on 12.<\/p>\n
At the other end of the scale, with six hours\u2019 refresher personal safety training are Dorset, Essex, Hampshire, Lancashire, Norfolk and Suffolk. They are followed by Cumbria on 6.25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The amount of refresher safety training officers receive every year is a postcode lottery \u2013 with the amount of entirely dependent on where officers are based. In Essex, officers get\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2897,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2896"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2900,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896\/revisions\/2900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}