TalkingBlues Blog

Durham police assessment results

ben — Mon, 07 May 2012 18:24:53 +0000

Had a good weekend this weekend, as had six people from our newcastle course email me saying they had passed the assessment centre and were going for their in force interview this week. Here are some of the emails,

“I recently attended the course you held in Newcastle back in March. I am just contacting you to let you know that I passed the assessment centre and managed to achieve 66%. Attending your course really opened my eyes as to what was required on the day and I wish to thank you for such a productive course. I will definitely be recommending you to any friends I know that plan on applying to join!

Once again, a great big thanks!”

Cheshire Police recruiting for ONE day MONDAY 23rd April 2012

ben — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:57:03 +0000

Anyone in the North West should check the Cheshire site NOW. They have put on there that they will be distributing 500 forms for one day, and that is your lot. Bearing in mind what i have said on the previous post, NOW is the time to get in. We alreday have a course on in Chester(Mold) for the end of May, which may suit some of you as I suspect that the assessments will all be done in a rush!

Windsor report effect on police recruitment

john — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:02:18 +0000

Having spoken to a few people this weekend at swindon on a course, I thought it worth while to point out the worth of redaing the recently published Windsor report into police pay and conditions. Of most interest to prospective police applicants will be the following three recommendations.

1. From April 2013 the police SEARCH process (the national recruitment system) pass mark should be raised to 70%.

2. From April 2013 the entry requirements should be raised. In essence, this will require applicants to have three A levels or equivalent, or have completed service as a special constable.

3. Also from April 2013. the recruit starting pay will be reduced from about £23000 to around £19000.

If there was ever a time to join, it is now, as from next April, things are going to get a whole lot tougher with a lot less money. From our perspective, it is very difficult to get 70% at assessment. The original pass mark was 50% remember. We would advise anyone thinking of joining the police to do so now, as leaving it until next year is going to make your chances of success a lot lower, and see you taking a pay cut of £4000 on what yo would get if you joined prior to then.

We would suggest you google the Windsor report and have a Read of the recommendations. In itself it is a massive incentive to get in now.

Police recruitment now stepping up at last

john — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 11:16:58 +0000

We are starting to see movement again in the police recruitment sector. There are three regions where we have active recruitment, hence our courses in Swindon this weekend, Newcastle the weekend after and then hatfield. There is still a trend however in only allowing specials, PCSO’s and police staff toapply. One or two forces are wary now of this, fearing it could be harmful to diversity (which it will be). The interesting thing is the effect that the Windsor report will have on police recruiting. The report, which you should have read if you are serious about joining the police, makes a number of recommendations which will directly affect recruits. One is a reduction in the starting salary from£ 23ooo to £19000. Some will say this will lower the number of applicants. It will, but it won’t affect the number of recruits. Even in the good economic times, only one in seven people who applied got into the service. If the number of applicants dropped by half, that would still mean we had loads more people applying for posts that were actually needed.

The second issue of direct issue is Windsors suggestion that recruits have three A levels or equivalents. I question how many people would now fit that criteria. However, in my view, that is one of those proposals which are put into reports knowing it will be challenged, and which can then be removed easily, keeping in the recommendations the author really wanted to keep in, but showing “reasonableness” by being willing to get rid of some ideas. Of course, the author never really wanted that idea in the first place.

Wiltshire Police recruitment

john — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:53:51 +0000

We hear a rumour that Wiltshire Police are going to recruit very shortly, possibly within the next few weeks for external candidates. Watch their website closely for details. We think that they will have a very narrow window to get an application form, and will only issue a small number.