If you look back at my blogs from a few months ago, everything that I said about police recruitment is coming true. Most forces have indeed cut back on recruiting, either suspending or cancelling their intakes. Cutting recruitment is the fastest and easiest way to save money, and remember, forces are being asked to cut between 25 and 40 % of their budget. So, recruitment goes out of the window. This means YOUR force as well!

For those lucky few who have an assessment coming up at teh end of July/early August, you need to consider this. Chances are, if you fail, you will not be able to apply for another two years at least, as there will be no applications accepted. You will not be able to apply to other forces, as they will not be recruiting either. That means that you need to pass this assessment, or wait years before trying again. By which time of course, even more people will be trying to get in and the competition will be harder.

What i find curious is that many forces have high numbers of CSO’s and support staff applying, many of whom tell em they would not come on a  course. Those that believe this may wish to have a look at the Talking Blues homepage, under reasons to do/not do a course!

Of the few forces that are recruiting, and it is only a handful, they will probably top slice applicants, and take the ones with the highest scores first. Thyat is not so bad, except that there is a good chance that anyone else will not get taken on, pass or not.

In short, now is the time to come on a course. Otherwise, think how sick you will be if you get a rejection letter.

Good luck!

Readers will have gathered that I do not have much time for NPIA, the National policing Improvement Agency. These are the people who write the exams that recruits (and others) have to sit. I referred a few months ago to the announcement from them that instead of changing the assessment exercises every 12 months, they were going to change them every six months. To understand the importance of this, you need to realise that the exercises stay teh same word for word for a 12 month period nationally. So, if you do your assessment in Cornwall on one date, and your mate does their 11 months later in Newcastle, you do exactly the same exercises,word for word, the role plays, the written exercises, and the interview questions. Word for word. A little while ago, these appeared on YouTube, hence after a bit of a panic, NPIA announced it would be changing the exercises after six months. We have been saying this needed to happen for years. Inevitably, they have now gone back on this decision and the exercises have remained unchanged.This is why at lunchtime on a recent course of ours, i heard the current exercises being discussed in detail by someone whose boyfriend had just done his assessment. Great for applicants, not so good for NPIA!

My opinion of NPIA remains suitably low!

Here is another thank you we had today.

I attended your seminar in Leeds at the Holiday Inn recently. There I asked you how you determined the number of your students that were successful at the assessment centre.  I am pleased to let you know that I passed my assessment centre for XX Constabulary with a pass mark of 74%! Preparation and attendance of your seminar no doubt played a massive part in this achievement and I would like to thank you once again.

Regards,”

These courses are now proving very popular, and the venues have been booked. However, there is only so much space at these Holiday Inns in terms of people that we can fit into the meeting rooms. If you do want a place at either of these, we would advise you to book sooner rather than later. It is very rare for us to say that, as we think it is a bit cheesy, but this time it is true!

I had an interesting conversation this week about whether being involved with the police already, such as a special constable, CSO or support staff member, is an advantage in getting in. This is particularly so since a lot of forces suggest that if you are unsuccessful at the police assessment centre stage, that you join the specials or become a cso to “gain experience”. In one or two forces, they hold special assessment centres for staff, so one can argue there that there is an advantage, but these are few and far between.

In most forces, the reality is that being in the job already gives you no advantage whatsoever. You get no preference when it comes to getting hold of an application for starters. Then when you get to assessment, no one will care about what you work as now, it is all about providing the right competencies. So, you are certainly not going to get some inside form of fast track.

There may be a slight advantage in that you may have some examples of partnership working, but there is no reason why a switched on candidate would not be able to bring in the same from outside.

There is however one potential disadvantage in that police related candidates often bring police type attitudes with them, which is exactly the kind of thin g the job is looking to weed out. Every CSO will have dealt with people who police officers have told to shut up in no uncertain times, or will have been exposed to police culture which is often a bit cynical and dismissive of minor problems.  This is the biggest hurdle that police staff have to overcome, the fact that if they have taken on board these values, and let them slip out in the assessment, then they are likely to fail.

Overall then, it is certainly not an advantage to be working in the police now in terms of applying, and can actually set you up in some ways to fail.

For those of you that would argue this is not true, consider this. If being a  CSO/Special/Support staff member is such a big advantage, why do you know loads of people from those groups who have tried and failed to join the police? Shouldn’t they al have passed?

Just a thought!