Overseas officers will be able to run police forces for the first time in radical shake-up

 

Suggested Topics

The Government today predicted Britain would have its first foreign chief constable in years rather than decades as it unveiled a shake-up of police recruitment rules.

Damian Green, the policing minister, said the current system put off some ambitious recruits to the police service because it would take 25 years to reach top jobs.

Announcing the reforms that have been opposed by rank-and-file police, Mr Green said: “It's a very odd situation where you can only get to the senior ranks of the police in this country if you have started right at the bottom and worked your way up. It's not true in the armed services.”

The proposals to be unveiled by Theresa May later are understood to include direct entry into the police at superintendent level and changes to the law that will allow foreign police chiefs to run forces for the first time.

Current legislation prevented US "supercop" Bill Bratton, former head of the New York police, applying to take charge of the Metropolitan Police in 2011.

Mr Green compared the situation to the recruitment of Mark Carney, a Canadian, to become Governor of the Bank of England. “Bringing in the best talent… is absolutely essential to continue the reform that has successfully led to falling crime in this country,” he told Radio 4’s Today programme. The changes were also intended to lead to more diversity in the force with more women and recruits from ethnic minorities, he said.

The changes are part of the package of reforms drawn up by ex-rail regulator Tom Winsor in his wide-ranging review of police pay and pensions that set policing organisations at loggerheads with the Government.

Under Mr Winsor’s proposals exceptional" applicants would have the chance to rise from civilian to inspector in just three years.

The changes were designed to encourage candidates from business, the military and the security services to change the culture and give the police the same standing as law and medicine, said Mr Winsor last year when he unveiled the changes.

Mr Winsor, now Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, said that the police needed to evolve to keep up with ever more resourceful criminals and for too long police work had been seen as undemanding.

The Police Federation, which represents officers up to the rank of chief inspector, said at the times that the reforms represented a “potentially lethal attack on the office of constable, the bedrock of British policing.”

Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe told a policing conference earlier this month that it was time to “consider and support” direct entry. He added that he would like to see one in 10 senior officers recruited from outside the police force.

Independent Comment
blog comments powered by Disqus
Top stories
News in pictures
World news in pictures
UK news in pictures
UK news in pictures
More stories
       
Independent
Travel Shop
Lake Como and the Bernina Express
Seven nights half-board from £749pp Find out more
Dubrovnik and the Dalmatian coast
Seven nights half-board from only £859pp Find out more
Prague city break
Three nights from only £199pp Find out more
 
Independent Dating
and  

By clicking 'Search' you
are agreeing to our
Terms of Use.

iJobs Job Widget
iJobs General

PR Manager - Renewables

£32000 - £33000 Per Annum: The Green Recruitment Company: The Green Recruitmen...

Regional Sales Manager - Renewable Energy

Negotiable Depending on Experience: The Green Recruitment Company: The Green R...

Senior Property Solicitor - Mayfair

Excellent Salary Package: Austen Lloyd: We have an outstanding opportunity for...

Room Leader NVQ Level 3

Negotiable: Capita Education Resourcing Permanent Team: Room Leader NVQ Level ...

Day In a Page

Beards, brawn and body art

Beards, brawn and body art

Meet London’s new batch of male models
Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

British love of shows such as The Bridge, Borgen and The Killing shows no sign of fading
Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?

The Great Green Wall of Africa,

Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?
Laughter Inc: the cheering growth of the chuckle industry

Laughter Inc

The cheering growth of the chuckle industry
The bad science scandal: how fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research

The bad science scandal

How fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research
To the manor born: The female aristocrats battling to inherit the title

Female aristocrats battle to inherit the title

A passionate protest is gathering pace among the women of Britain's aristocracy, who believe that men should no longer automatically inherit the family pile and title.
Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten

In pictures: JFK's visit to Berlin in 1963

Photographer Ulrich Mack accompanied Kennedy on the entire trip. The results are an astonishing record of a watershed moment.
Eat shoots and leaves: Mark Hix gets creative with fresh peas, mangetouts and sugar snaps

Mark Hix gets creative with English peas

English peas and their offsprings, such as mangetouts and sugar snaps, are great tossed into a salad, says our chef.
Ceviche with a smile: Chef Martin Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends

Chef Martin Morales: Ceviche with a smile

Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends
Incredible edible: Guerrilla gardeners are planting veg for the masses in West Yorkshire

Incredible edible: Guerrilla gardeners

Holly Williams joins the volunteers who have turned a small town into a thriving community with a guerrilla gardening scheme that has provided a blueprint for sustainability.
Seasoned to taste: The restaurants that draw happy diners back year after year

Seasoned to taste: Food institutions

In an industry famed for short-lived success and pop-up pretenders, it takes something special to stick around.
Anatomy of a waiter: Service staff spill the secrets of their trade

Anatomy of a waiter: Staff spill their secrets

Next Sunday is the first ever National Waiters' Day. To celebrate, we share tales from the restaurant trenches by those in the front line.
Drink in the sun: The season's best wines

Drink in the sun: The season's best wines

From complex English sparkling wine to juicy Sicilian reds...
Iran election: Farewell Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we’ll miss you – but not that much...

Robert Fisk

Farewell Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we’ll miss you – but not that much...
India sends its final telegram -(Stop)-

After 163 years India sends its final telegram -(Stop)-

Mobile phones and the internet have superseded the once-essential service