COP0005 - Evidence on College of Policing

Written Evidence submitted by the College of Policing

New Landscape of Policing Follow Up: College of Policing

Thank you for the invitation to contribute to the Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry into the landscape of policing. We write to provide you with further information following our appearance before the committee on 9 December 2014 and further to your letter of 16 December 2014. We would also be grateful if this letter could be treated as our formal written submission to the inquiry.

During the committee session members requested additional information in a number of specific areas, and an update on progress against the Committee’s July 2013 Leadership and Standards in Policing report. This is included as Annex A.

In our five year strategy, we set out our vision to make the College of Policing a world-class professional body, equipping our members with the skills and knowledge to prevent crime protect the public and secure public trust.

The College of Policing:

sets standards of professional practice
identifies, develops and promotes good practice based on evidence
support the professional development of those working in policing
helps police forces and other organisations to work together to protect the public and prevent crime
identifies, develops and promotes ethics, values and standards of integrity

We are an organisation in transition. We have the challenge of delivering a new and comprehensive professional body for all who work in policing while at the same time delivering ‘business as usual’ support expected and needed by forces and the Home Office. We have made considerable progress in both these arenas and outline some of our successes below.

Setting standards of professional practice

In areas where the College has reviewed and set standards of professional practice we have been careful to establish the evidence base. Our authorised professional practice is now all online and directly accessible both to those working in policing and, when operationally appropriate, the public. But to review all existing standards and guidance to ensure they are based on the best available evidence of what works will take time. In our Strategy we have set our aim of achieving this over the next five years.

In the last year the College has reviewed and published guidance on Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) twice, to take into account changes to the law and learning from high profile cases (Operation Span, Operation Retriever and Operation Bullfinch). This guidance will help underpin a consistent approach to identifying risks and safeguarding children and young people from sexual exploitation.

The College has published standards on use of pre-charge bail which make clear that where possible, investigations should be finalised during the first period of detention. It states that unless there are exceptional circumstances, bail should be no more than 28 days.

The College has updated standards on domestic abuse for all those involved from initial call handling to those in strategic positions. This month the College launched an eight-week consultation on the national policing guidance to officers and staff on investigating and responding to domestic abuse.

Identifying, developing and promoting good practice based on evidence

The College has supported trials of the use of Body Worn Video (BWV) to understand whether it improves police-public contact as well as helping officers gather quality evidence. One pilot, carried out by the College of Policing and Essex Police from January to May 2014, showed body worn video could be effective in increasing the proportion of detections that led to criminal charges. In 2015, we will support a trial due to be held in the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS).

The College hosts the What Works Centre for Crime Reduction, a consortium with academic institutions labelling the crime reduction evidence base. In 2015 we will launch an online evidence tool making evidence accessible to support decision making.

Supporting the professional development of those working in policing

The College has provided training courses for the authorisation and management of undercover policing operations. We have also completed and launched two full selection processes for foundation and advanced undercover roles. The tools, exercises and assessments embed the Code of Ethics within role profiles and competencies in this high risk part of policing.

We have developed a new training programme to ensure that every police force crime registrar receives standard training and guidance, to support greater consistency in crime recording across the country. The accreditation regime includes ongoing review and evaluation of training for crime registrars.

The Professionalising Investigation Programme (PIP) is designed to improve investigative skills across all police officers and staff. The College has reviewed all training offered as part the programme and gives detectives a professional qualification that is standardised across the service.

Helping police forces and other organisations work together to protect the public and prevent crime

On domestic abuse the College worked with Co-ordinated Action Against Domestic Abuse (CAADA) to review current guidance and highlight areas for improvement. We are developing an inclusive approach to working in partnership with other agencies and bodies which can contribute to effective policing.

We have formed an oversight group for undercover policing which includes representatives from the media, law and academia to consider guidance and standards in this sensitive area of policing.

Identifying, developing and promoting ethics, values and standards of integrity

The College published a Code of Ethics for police professionals in England and Wales in July 2014. The Code provides principles to guide people working in policing when exercising discretion in the difficult decisions they face each day. It sets out the standards and behaviour expected from everyone who works in policing.

Our disapproved register, launched in December 2013, names all of those who have been found guilty of gross misconduct to ensure that they should not be re-employed.

This is by no means an exhaustive list but provides a snapshot of the College’s work since its inception. We do, however, experience challenges and constraints on our success. Some of these are a consequence of the complexity of the policing landscape that the Home Affairs Select Committee is reviewing.

From our perspective, some of the main challenges are as follows:

Our core mission, namely to become the professional body for all individual members of staff working in policing, is not the only thing we have to deliver. We are also expected to set standards for the forces against which the HMIC will inspect performance. It is unusual for a professional body, with the professional interests of its members at its heart, to have a responsibility for overall service standards as well.

Setting standards in policing is the responsibility of the College, however, the monitoring of their delivery is the responsibility of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary. This separation of standard setting and monitoring can create difficulties and lead to police forces perceiving themselves to be subject to multiple masters. We are working with HMIC to ensure the setting of standards and their monitoring are brought as closely together as possible.
There is an inherent tension between the College’s role in setting national standards in policing and the variation created by 43 independent local forces in England and Wales, and an additional number of non-geographical forces. Standards set by the College are based on the best available evidence of what works to support the police in delivering the best service to the public. But the number of forces and local accountabilities create conditions for variation. Ensuring that standards are consistently delivered is a responsibility shared between forces, the College and HMIC.
The College was created as a professional body without direct access to its potential members. To communicate directly with those working in policing, such as sending them the first professional code of ethics, required the permission and cooperation of police forces. From April of this year we will establish a membership platform which will allow us to initiate a direct line of contact with members.
The College has a wide brief and as issues have emerged, particularly in high profile areas of policing, what we have been asked to do has grown. It is important that the College is not seen as the answer to every problem and is able to focus on commissions, from any source, which are both core to the delivery of our strategic plan and adequately resourced.

We are grateful for the opportunity to discuss the work of the College and contribute to the Committee’s consideration of the policing landscape. We hope this update proves informative and provides the Committee with the evidence to draw any conclusions and recommendations.

Yours sincerely,

Alex Marshall, Chief Executive, and Professor Shirley Pearce, Chair

College of Policing

8 January 2015

Annex A

Membership

The College of Policing will be launch a membership service to all police officers and staff in England and Wales in April 2015. Two membership packages will be available; Standard and Premium.

Standard membership will provide police officers and staff with access to services that are required by individuals to fulfil their professional role within policing. These include Authorised Professional Practice (APP), exams and assessment, course and event booking, continuous professional development (CPD) recording, online collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Standard membership will be subsidised by the College for a minimum of three years and for as long after this as it is possible to do so, meaning these services will be provided at no cost to individual members. The College will continue to charge forces for the services it provides today but there will be no additional charge to individual members or forces as a result of implementing standard membership.

The College also intends to offer categories of individual membership for those working for partner agencies, providers of services to policing, academic partners and organisations, or policing organisations outside the UK.

The College is currently in consultation with potential members about the services they would be prepared to pay for as part of an optional premium membership. Initial feedback gathered through a survey of some 2,700 officers and staff electronically, and 69 face-to-face interviews, has indicated an interest in services such as: mentoring, news feeds, 360 appraisal services, careers advice, member discounts, job opportunities and advanced professional development beyond the core curriculum.

The College’s ambition is to provide a membership service that offers relevant and personalised learning, and career and support resources to people working in policing, whatever their role.

Independence

The College is working to establish its credentials as an independent body, to develop its voice in public debate and reduce its dependence on grant-in-aid from the government. In order to, in time, seek chartered status, we need to raise more than 50% of our income from sources other than grant-in-aid. In 2014/15 our income is projected to be around £80 million, with some £20 million being derived from training, international assistance, events or assessments and the remainder from Home Office grant-in-aid and other specific grants.

International Assistance

Any training of overseas law enforcement officers is overseen by the cross-governmental International Policing Assistance Board (IPAB) which coordinates the delivery of HMGs cross-departmental and police service interests overseas and reviews training initiatives to ensure that they support the UK’s international priorities. The IPAB includes representatives from the College of Policing ACPO, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ministry of Defence, Department for International Development and devolved administrations. All training delivered by the College meets the highest international standards and respect for human rights and dignity is interwoven into each and every programme.

The College works in [1]:

All EU and EEA states through CEPOL (European Police College); Afghanistan; Australia; Bahrain; Bermuda; Bosnia; Brunei Darussalam; China; Ecuador; Germany; Ghana; India; Indonesia; Kenya; Kuwait; Kyrgyzstan; Libya; Malaysia; Netherlands; New Zealand; Norway; Oman; Qatar; Rwanda; Saudi Arabia; Serbia; Sierra Leone; Somalia; St. Kitts and Nevis; Sweden; Tanzania; Thailand; Trinidad; Uganda; United States; United Arab Emirates: Abu Dhabi; United Arab Emirates: Dubai.

Certificate of Knowledge in Policing (CKP)

The Certificate of Knowledge in Policing (CKP) is a pre-entry qualification for policing for which providers are licensed and accredited by the College. It is one of a range of flexible entry routes into policing and is required by six forces: the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), South Wales Police, Hertfordshire Police, Surrey Police, Thames Valley Police, and Cheshire Constabulary.

The CKP is a pre-entry qualification. Prior to joining the police service as a police constable, any candidate, regardless of pre-entry qualifications, must pass a recruitment assessment process to determine whether they meet a national standard for entry requirements set by the College.

In 2015 the College will commence a full implementation review of the CKP. The scope of this evaluation will include: equality impact assessment monitoring, analysis of different delivering models (classroom learning, online), and processes for the licensing and approval of providers. The review will include visits to providers and run from January to March 2015, with reporting scheduled for the end of March.

To offer the qualification, providers have to be approved by an Awarding Organisation such as Skills for Justice or OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA). In 2012, the College introduced an approved provider scheme to help ensure a level of national consistency and standardisation whichever provider is offering the training and assessment. One of the requirements of the scheme is that providers undertake an annual quality assurance process to demonstrate they meet the College of Policing’s quality standards as defined in seven criteria.

These criteria include demonstrating:

course content is fully mapped to the pre-join curriculum
they have sufficient appropriately qualified and experienced trainers/assessors
assessment is in accordance with the requirements of the national qualification
there are processes for authentication and also quality assurance, which will be monitored to demonstrate provision is working effectively in practice.

All decisions regarding approval are subject to second-line validation and endorsement by an approval panel.

We currently have 44 approved providers. Based on the cumulative data we have to date, the largest volume of learning is provided by those listed (in order of volumes) below.

1) Bluelight Consultancy

2) 1 ACKP Enlighten

3) Sancus Solutions

4) APS

5) E-Laws

6) Bluelight Publishing

Bluelight Publishing, which was mentioned in the Committee hearing, is the sixth largest provider in the UK. The similarly-named Bluelight Consultancy is a separate and distinct provider.

Of the 44 providers in the Scheme, the vast majority are exclusively class-room based (38). There are six providers, including Bluelight Publishing, which offer an element of online provision. As a requirement of the qualification’s assessment process all candidates undertake a one day assessment centre, in person, under examination conditions, regardless of whether learning is online or class-room based.

Research into Code of Ethics

Our research conducted into the benefit of a Code of Ethics is published on our website here: http://www.college.police.uk/en/docs/REA_codes_of_ethics.pdf.

Budget & Consultants

College of Policing Budget data

Staffing Costs 40.6 44.7 47.2

Travel & Subsistence 3.5 3.3 3.2

Consultancy 0.5 0.4 0.4

Estate Costs 17.9 14.9 12.1

IT Costs 1.7 3.0 2.4

Depreciation 2.2 2.1 2.7

Grants 3.5 0.7 0.7

Other Costs 4.0 5.4 4.5

Total Expenditure 73.9 74.5 73.2

Funded by:

Income/Recovery 22.7 26.9 28.2

Grant In Aid 51.2 47.5 45.0

Notes on Budgets Table Notes:

Both 2014/15 and 2015/16 exclude Fast Track Direct Entry. Although this was originally included as a budgetary delegation from Home Office in 2014/15, the Home Office is rethinking this treatment and is likely to move to a position in which it retains the budget within the Home Office and reimburses the College for expenditure undertaken.

No firm indication has yet been received from Home Office regarding funding levels for 2015/16. The table shows an estimate of what the position might look like with a reduction of Grant in Aid of circa 5%.

The 2015/16 estimate reflects reduced IT costs following the 2014/15 IT refresh; Reduced Estate costs following Bramshill, Harrogate and Wyboston moves; and an increase in depreciation costs resulting from capital spend on Atlas, smaller IT projects and Estate work required to achieve increased leverage from a reduced Estate.

[1] On 17 October 2016 the College of Policing drew the Committee’s attention to an error in the list of countries that the College has worked in. Mexico had erroneously been included in the list. The list has been updated accordingly. An up-to-date list can be found on the College’s website.