Crime commissioner pleased police officers will be ‘out arresting people rather than writing essays’ as police entry degree ended in county

During a meeting of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Police and Crime Panel, Donna Jones said the Home Office ended the mandatory requirement of a police entry degree after being lobbied by her and chief constable Scott Chilton – making Hampshire the first police force to not require it in the country.

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Ms Jones said: ‘(Scott Chilton) and I have been lobbying for a period of time to the home secretary to end the mandatory police entry degree. I’m really pleased it has now been permitted.

‘Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Constabulary is the first police force in the country to announce how we will bring on new recruits from next month (June) much more akin to an apprenticeship level qualification as opposed to being degree level.

‘This will mean that we will save in excess of 100,000 policing hours per year with new police officers not spending one-third of their time in the classroom writing about PACE (Police and Criminal Evidence act) law but instead they will be out applying the application of PACE directly, and actually arresting people rather than writing essays on it. Those who want to do a degree are still able to if they want to.’

In Hampshire and the Isle of Wight more than 750 of its police officers out of 3,300 are students.

The new scheme, Policing PLUS, enables police officers to join via a non-degree entry route and allows those currently on the degree to transfer onto the new non-degree path, leaving the classroom with an apprentice skills-based focus, particularly on investigative skills.

Those joining as new non-degree student officers under Policing PLUS will have a full 15-week initial training programme.

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