NPCC chair defends speed of recruitment programme

Gavin Stephens said fewer than two in ten candidates make it through “rigorous” selection procedures.

Government figures published on Wednesday showed that workforce numbers in England and Wales had risen by more than 20,000 since 2019, with more than 46,000 people joining the service during that time.

Metropolitan Police Service Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, whose force was the only one in England and Wales not to meet its target, said bosses had wanted to ensure the quality of new recruits and questioned whether it was wise to hire at speed.

Concerns were also raised in November about the quality of police vetting procedures, with inspectors concluding that thousands of corrupt officers could be working in England and Wales due to failings in the system.

Mr Stephens told the PA news agency: “This is a really impressive achievement for policing to bring in well over 46,000 new colleagues in policing, and that was during the pandemic as well and beyond, it is a pretty impressive thing.

“Fewer than two in ten of the people that apply make it all the way through the selection procedure. There is very rigorous assessment, medical fitness test, vetting.”

He said that more than 250,000 people had applied to join the service during the recruitment drive, aimed at replacing the officers whose jobs were cut during austerity.

Figures suggested that nearly 1,500 recruits had been offered jobs in the final month before the deadline, but Mr Stephens rejected any accusations of a rush, saying it was the culmination of “four years of very detailed and concerted hard work and effort”.

The former Surrey chief constable said that while new recruits may not have experience in policing, many had joined as a second career and already had useful skills.

“The people that are joining us they may be new to policing, but they’re certainly not inexperienced. There’s a whole range of skills and backgrounds on offer.”

He went on: “You might be new to policing. It doesn’t mean that you’re inexperienced.

“I met some that had come from the military, from service industries, from other public services, from the legal profession, from other positions in academia, a whole range of backgrounds coming into policing and all of those skills are really valuable to us.”

Around 40 per cent of the new recruits are women and 11 per cent are black, Asian or minority ethnic.

The Home Secretary also played down concerns that the Government’s campaign to recruit an extra 20,000 new police officers could see candidates who were “not up to scratch” joining forces.

Suella Braverman insisted there were “extensive” vetting procedures in place amid reports failed applicants were being called back by forces in a bid to hit hiring targets.

Ms Braverman told reporters: “We have a whole programme of work which is about checking the assisting data, reviewing our vetting standards, working with the College of Policing guidance, the inspectorate and police forces individually. Alongside that, I have confidence in the vetting and the recruitment of the new cohorts.

“Our vetting systems are pretty extensive. There are wide-ranging checks that are carried out on any new applicant.

“Financial checks, checks for cautions and convictions, checks for non-criminal sanctions, checks on their relatives and their associates – quite in-depth checks are carried out.

“I think we should be clear about the rigour that’s applied in our recruitment process. It’s not as if we’re accepting everybody and anybody who applies to be a police officer.”

Both the Police Federation and Labour have argued that the recruitment drive does not go far enough because of population growth since 2010.

Mr Stephens said there are now 3,500 more officers than there were in 2010, with 27 forces out of the 43 in England and Wales having record high numbers.