Hampshire police recruits to drop degrees for on-the-job training

A police force is to allow its recruits to abandon their “life-sucking” degree course in favour of on-the-job training to free up 100,000 hours of officer time.

Hampshire Constabulary is the first force to allow students to return to traditional “on-the-beat training” after they have started the policing degree programme. It expects dozens, if not hundreds, of recruits to change. Other forces are expected to adopt the policy.

Scott Chilton, Hampshire’s chief constable, wrote to student officers last week announcing the changes and said the entry system was “sucking the life out of the force”. He wanted recruits on the front line “learning how to investigate crime from experienced officers rather than writing essays”.

Under changes introduced by the College of Policing standards body, by 2021 recruits were required to have a degree or join as an apprentice while earning a qualification on the job. Suella Braverman, the home secretary, scrapped the requirement last November after criticism.

The traditional route did not involve higher education and many recruits said they were not given enough time to complete study requirements such as essays. Some chiefs complained it was attracting young people who were not prepared for frontline duties.

In some forces, attrition increased because student officers were juggling a degree with a full-time job. When Braverman said in November that forces could offer a non-degree entry route, many chiefs welcomed the move, saying that they wanted to attract a wide variety of applicants, such as military veterans who wanted to transfer but were being put off by the requirements.

In Hampshire, 750 of the total 3,300 police officers are students. Of these, about 550 are on the three-year degree course, known as an apprenticeship programme, and some 200 already had degrees when they entered.

Under Chilton’s new Policing Plus scheme, the apprenticeship officers can switch to the non-degree route, which involves a 15-week training programme aligned to the degree programme to ensure quality. They then develop skills working on the front line for two years, without classroom time. Student officers who want to earn a degree can remain on that programme.

Chilton said the move would free about 100,000 hours of officer time to get back on the beat and learn skills. “We will be making sure that the training officers are targeting criminals and working in neighbourhoods.”

Donna Jones, Hampshire’s Conservative police and crime commissioner, said that the degree programme had brought in recruits who were academic but not necessarily equipped for policing the beat. There was a higher attrition rate because the job was not what they had expected, she said.

Source: (The Times)