Staffordshire Police Federation chair Lee Robinson has highlighted the importance of making sure joining the service remained open to everyone so all sections of the community were properly represented.
Lee was speaking after the Police Federation of England and Wales voiced its opposition to the introduction of a new Level 5 non-degree police officer entry route, warning it would defeat the founding tenets of the Policing Education Qualifications Framework (PEQF) and risked creating a two-tier pathway.
It called on the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and College of Policing to ensure non-degree entry would still be accredited to educational Level 6 and not a lower educational level which could impact standards.
Lee said: “The important thing for me is that the entry requirements for policing remain open to all.
“We have to be representative of the communities we serve and although I totally support professionalising policing with qualifications, we have to make the ability to join the police open to the whole community.
“Sir Robert Peel said the public are the police and the police are the public and we should embrace this whether the outcome is a Level 5 or a Level 6 qualification.”
Lee said it was also important to continue attracting recruits who had already worked in other sectors.
“We appear to have stopped attracting ex-forces and other candidates from other industries,” he said.
“We are missing the life experience that these candidates offer the service and we must do more to reopen those doors and bring in candidates with experience from other professions.”
The new Level 5 (non-accredited) learning programme is being made available for forces as soon as possible but not later than 1 April 2024.
A number of forces are yet to engage with education partners about the impact of new standards and learning on existing Level 6 contractual obligations and await the College of Policing’s further implementation guidance and the design of associated curricula.
The Police Federation said it was still awaiting the equality impact assessment of the decision to introduce the non-degree entry route supporting Level 5 qualification but, in the meantime, urged the NPCC and the college to ensure any change in the policy ensures that the standards defining competence in the police constable role remain the same irrespective of the entry routes.
