Spotlight On: Degree entry scheme for police officers

The PEQF (Policing Education Qualifications Framework) is the new, professional framework for the training of police officers and staff. The framework will over time cover the entire range of professional training for police officers from the rank of constable through to chief officer. It will also encompass many police staff, police community support officers (PCSO) and special constables.

Consultation on the new Policing Education Qualifications Framework (PEQF) of which degree entry forms a part began in 2016. 

Sharon Gander, Nottingham Trent University

Policing Insight entered the discussion with a detailed piece by former police officer Sharon Gander, now Policing Pathway Lead for the BA (Hons) Criminology Degree of Nottingham Trent University whose Degree-gate: Why are police afraid of change? flagged early on that was likely to be a controversial area. In her article, Sharon argued the proposals would attract higher numbers from some under-represented groups who might see the status of policing raised through formal qualifications such as degrees.

Sandra Andrews, CoPaCC researcher

The original consultation conducted by the College of Policing received around 3000 responses, many of which were from police officers and the majority of which supported the need for a national qualifications’ framework. In her April 2016 article, Proposals for qualifications in policing: Are the College manipulating the figures?, CoPaCC researcher Sandra Andrews took a closer look at the consultation, querying the way the data had been presented.

Policing apprenticeships could improve diversity – but at what cost? by police journalist Keith Potter in January 2017 examined apprenticeship scheme which the College of Policing highlighted would attract those deterred by the high cost of funding their own degree.

However, the article was also the first to signal early concerns from some forces about increased training costs and rising abstraction rates. Although the scheme had not been fully costed, the Metropolitan Police Service calculated that to ‘break even’ they would need to run 1000 apprenticeships annually.

Former officer and now lecturer Rich Honess

Rich Honess was originally a serving officer before he took up a role as senior lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University and has written a number of articles from his perspective as a police officer and now academic. In Teaching Practice? An officer’s suggestion on the shape of the new policing degrees (February 2017). he takes a look at the one of proposed routes: completing an accredited policing degree before applying to the service, suggesting it should have three elements: academic, professional skills training and professional practice. Rich Honess’ other articles include: I get asked questions: A view on degree entry from a former frontline officer (September 2018) where he responds in depth to a question from @kentishKop on the need for a degree at all. Getting it right: Assessing student officers and police apprentices (April 2019)  looks at how students on degree apprenticeships are to be assessed.

Dr Emma Williams, Director of Policing Research, CCCU

In August 2017, the issue of recognising prior experience and learning was opened up to Twitter via the respected @wecops. Led by Dr Emma Williams of Canterbury Christ Church University, serving frontline officer Dan Reynolds and the College of Policing, the concerns of contributors were addressed in their article, Education AND experience? The @wecops debate on the PEQF and RPEL

In June 2018, Dr Emma Williams, Director of Canterbury Centre for Policing Research at Canterbury Christ Church University argued that knowledge in policing needs to be recognised as reflexive, and police education as a two-way process in Learning as cops and as academics: Talking degreegate again. 

In the same month, Policing Insight’s Academic Editor Carina O’Reilly gave her perspective in Degree-level entry to the police: Three lessons from local government on legitimacy in which she addressed issues including whether the proposals had legitimacy given they had left existing officers feeling rejected, undervalued and ignored.  

Dr Dominic Wood, CCU

In Making the grade: The PEQF is an opportunity to embed learning and assessment within police practice, Dr Dominic Wood, Head of the School of Law, Criminal Justice and Computing at Canterbury Christ Church University, argued the PEQF presented the police service with an opportunity to ‘reassert its professional voice and standing in society’.

CC Bill Skelly, Lincs Police

This year Sheffield Hallam University teamed up with South Yorkshire Police to offer the three separate routes into policing. The University’s Head of Policing Principal Lecturer Paul Berry explained how the courses would run and why he would have leapt at the opportunity to do the police apprenticeship degree in Police recruitment: “I would have leapt at the chance to do an apprenticeship”

Last month (July 2019), the controversy surrounding the proposals surfaced in the form of Chief Constable Bill Skelly’s announcement that he was taking the College of Policing to a judicial review over a number of concerns including the training costs and potential abstraction. 

Following Lincolnshire Police’s announcement, Dr Emma Williams and research assistant Jack Chapman examined the operational readiness of forces for the new qualification in their article (July 2019), Winning hearts and minds: The implications of the lack of local and central comms on the implementation of the PEQF.

Further articles can be found on this subject by searching ‘degree’ or ‘PEQF’.