The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.

Training isn’t just important...it is vital.

The return on investment in bespoke police training and development will always be found within HMICFRS inspection reports, and particular those that focus on efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy.  Efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy are all achieved by having a workforce which is suitably trained to meet the needs of modern day policing challenges.  The benefits of training include, but are not limited to:

• Improved individual officer performance.
• Improved team performance.
• Increased staff satisfaction.
• Increased victim satisfaction.
• Identification and addressing weakness is performance.
• Consistency in serve delivery.
• Regulatory compliance.
• Innovation.
• Enhanced organisational reputation.

Despite the benefits derived from effective, well resourced learning and development departments, austerity measures has seen police training budgets reduced.  Experienced police officers have retired and have not been replaced.  Course lengths and delegate numbers are often reduced to meet increased calls for service.  

Carmar exist as a support provision, and can help manage training matters identified by the regulatory bodies as set out below:  

Roads Policing:

• Too often we found officers that hadn’t been given the appropriate training and support to allow them to carry out a critical role.  

• Refresher driver training should be in-line with other operations which can involve lethal force such as firearms.  

• Improving risk commentary training for operators. 

• Interview data suggested pursuit safety could be improved by drivers giving clearer justification of why they decided to pursue, more training of operators to perform risk commentaries, greater use of pre-emptive strategies, and continuing checks and balances provided by control room staff.  

• Moreover, fear of personal repercussions, concerns of facing criminal investigation in the event of a crash, and public scrutiny made all staff involved in the management of pursuits risk averse.  

• Roads policing officers have a much broader function than the conventional notion of a ‘traffic officer’. However, alongside additional duties, these officers are still expected to fulfil a ‘traffic’ role. This requires specialist training and support from forces. Yet we found roads policing officers whose training was so inadequate they couldn’t identify and prosecute offences 

•  We have become much more aware about being inclusive, and making adjustments where possible to make driver training accessible to all, whether as a trainer or a learner.  

Source: Roads Policing: Learning the Lessons: Issue 38 

Criminal Justice:

• Some forces described strain in supporting functions such as training, human resources and analysis. If this isn’t remedied, it may have worrying implications for the national increase in police officers and forces’ capacity to recruit new people.  

•  Sometimes, officers and staff haven’t had extra training before they carry out complex investigations. They don’t always have the skills and experience they need to investigate effectively 

•  The sheer number of complex cases means that some are investigated by officers who don’t have the right training, skills or experience.  

•  Better training and support for frontline workers are vital

•  Although training for cases involving domestic abuse was in place across both services, there were limited training packages or material available with a specific focus on evidence-led domestic abuse prosecutions. These cases should be given the same weight and training as those offered to staff dealing with general domestic abuse. 

•  All response officers should have had basic investigation training. 

Source:  HMICFRS: State of Policing - The annual assessment of policing in England and Wales 2019

Sergeant and Inspectors Training

•  PFEW's new survey shows 32% of frontline supervisors & Sergeants are concerned they will be overseeing a high number of inexperienced recruits: 

•  Frontline Supervision Thematic Review (justiceinspectorates.gov.uk) 

If you are a learning and development function seeking to source ad-hoc support to meet demand, please get in touch.  Our management team and cadre of trainers are experienced police and law enforcement staff who are suitably qualified to meet any police training requirement.