Police blast training proposals as ‘bushtucker challenge’ entry test

Chief Constable Nick Gargan, chief executive of the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), said the proposal risked putting off the very best graduates and minority communities from joining the service.

Other senior officers warned that turning over police training to higher education institutions might damage standards and deprive chief constables of the chance to weed out unsuitable candidates.

Their comments follow a report on the future of police leadership and training by former NPIA head Peter Neyroud which called for the introduction of entry-level qualifications for all police constables and for forces to bring in colleges and universities to deliver training. He also suggested officers should pay an annual membership fee to a professional institute which would supersede the Association of Chief Police Officers.

“For me, the risk is that you make entry to the service such a bushtucker challenge that you only get the people who want it most badly, when actually the people we want to recruit aren’t necessarily those who want to do it most badly,” Mr Gargan said.

Ideal candidates who aren’t expecting “a major fight to qualify for a job that pays what we pay at Pc level” and minority communities with a “mistrust of policing and pre-existing cultural reluctance” could be put off, he said.

Chief Constable Andy Trotter, of the British Transport Police, said he and another force had once tried using a university for the initial training of officers but had stopped “because I wasn’t satisfied with the standards”.

Speaking at a seminar in London on the future of policing, Lord Bichard said Mr Neyroud’s recommendation that policing should be turned from a craft into a profession with the creation of a new national body could “discourage diversity at the point of entry”.