Ucl department of Security and Crime Science

What is it?

They provide courses for police, undertake projects and provide a wide range of services to police forces and related organisations.

The NPIA works closely with their partners at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), Association of Police Authorities (APA) and Home Office in helping to face the challenging and demanding needs of policing in the 21st century. They work on projects such as Neighbourhood Policing, in providing an accessible, responsive service for the public, IMPACT – an initiative to enable all police forces to have shared access to police data, and Workforce Modernisation, working towards creating a flexible, modern and efficient workforce

The NPIA headquarters are in London where they have several offices. They also have offices located in Oxfordshire, Bedford, North Yorkshire, Durham, Coventry and Birmingham.

Various levels of qualifications and skills are required depending on role. Overall, qualities such as creativity, co-operation and teamwork have been highlighted. Check specific vacancies for further details.

Check website for current vacancies.

http://www.npia.police.uk/en/index.htm NPIA

http://www.npia.police.uk/en/11691.htm Recruitment Page

Government (Regional / Local):

Police Force:

High Potential Development Scheme (HPD)

The High Potential Development (HPD) scheme has been designed to support and develop the future leaders of the police service, to improve their leadership and command skills, and assist them to progress to senior positions.

 

Qualifications & Qualities

The HPD scheme is designed to reward candidates who exhibit the attitude, belief, vision, drive and determination to face and meet all the challenges that a career in the police service will provide. Apart from displaying some of the characteristics and attitudes mentioned previously, there are no restrictions on application and our current HPD population is diverse.
In short, anyone who believes they have the potential to progress to senior positions can apply. All new and existing officers up to the rank of chief inspector – regardless of factors such as age, education, gender or ethnic origin – are eligible. No preference is given to any individual, but applications are especially welcome from women and individuals from visible minority ethnic groups. No formal educational or other qualifications are required.
You can apply to the HPD scheme if you are considering a career in the police, but you will need to have applied and been offered a job in one of the UK’s 43 police forces or the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), British Transport Police (BTP) and States of Jersey Police, before you are eligible to join the High Potential Development scheme. See www.policecouldyou.co.uk for a list of English and Welsh forces (plus BTP) who are currently recruiting and more information on the application process. For the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), visit www.psni.police.uk and for States of Jersey visit http://www.jersey.police.uk/Pages/Home.aspx.
Recruitment

Success at any stage is based on the applicant’s ability to demonstrate the required potential against the competency requirements necessary to participate in the HPD scheme.

As part of the scheme all successful applicants – graduates and non-graduates – will have a higher education opportunity. Many of our current scheme members study for the HPD MSc in Policing and Leadership. All HPD officers have automatic access to this course, but there are many other options dependent on your current academic attainment and career aspirations within the police service.

Police pay is reviewed every year and can vary by force. Annual salaries are given below, where information has been taken from the Police Federation of England and Wales website, http://www.polfed.org/default.asp

(Annual increments from 2 years onwards)

Sergeant’s Pay:

(Entry at 0 or 1 depending on length of service, then annual increments)

Pay point/year	2008	2009	2010
0	£34,707	£35,610	£36,519
1	£35,895	£36,828	£37,767
2	£37,098	£38,064	£39,036
3	£37,893	£38,877	£39,867
4	£39,006	£40,020	£41,040

Inspector’s Pay:

Pay point	With effect from September 2007	With effect from September 2008	With effect from September 2009	With effect from September 2010
0	£43,320 (£45,222)	£44,469 (£46,419)	£45,624 (£47,625)	£46,788 (£48,840)
1	£44,544 (£46,446)	£45,723 (£47,676)	£46,911 (£48,915)	£48,108 (£50,163)
2	£45,765 (£47,673)	£46,977 (£48,936)	£48,198 (£50,208)	£49,428 (£51,489)
3	£46,989 (a) (£48,903) (a)	£48,234 (a) (£50,199) (a)	£49,488 (a) (£51,504) (a)	£50,751 (£52,818)

London salaries in parentheses.

The normal working week is 40 hours on a shift basis. Shift patterns vary between forces. All ranks below superintendent are entitled to two rest days a week and compensation if required to work over those two days. They are also entitled to leave or compensation in lieu of public holidays.

Our pensions scheme offers generous benefits, with the option of transferring previous pensions to our scheme. It’s also worth noting that police officers are contracted out of the earnings related part of the State Pension Scheme, so National Insurance contributions are paid at the lower, contracted out rate.

The Police High Potential Development Scheme

A Crime Prevention Officer is primarily concerned with giving advice regarding security in both the domestic and commercial sector. Areas of expertise will include: intruder Alarm Systems; close circuit television (CCTV); perimeter protection; glazing; door sets (type and specification); access control; property marking; asset control; cash handling and fraud.

Vacancies are advertised on local authority websites as well as in regional and national newspapers.

Crime Analysts

Crime Analysts collect, evaluate, collate and analyse information from a wide variety of internal and external sources relating to committed crime, criminal intelligence policing activities and law enforcement matters in order to produce high quality analytical products in support of the forces strategy and national policing requirements.

Candidates should be educated to degree level and have good problems solving skills and be able to analyse information and to identify important issues and problems. Candidates should be able to identify risks and consider alternative courses of action to make good decisions. An analyst would need to display resilience and confidence to perform their own role without unnecessary support in normal circumstances. Police forces look for individuals with the ability to plan and carry out activities in an orderly and well-structured way; prioritising tasks, using time in the best possible way, and working within appropriate policy and procedures. Post holders will also need to show respect for race and diversity, be able to understand other people’s views and take them into account. An analyst should be tactful and diplomatic when dealing with people, treating them with dignity and respect at all times. They should also understand and be sensitive to social, cultural and racial differences.

Community Safety Officers (CSOs)

Under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, local authorities and police authorities have a duty to establish crime and disorder partnerships to implement plans to reduce crime in their communities. Community safety officers support partnerships, voluntary agencies and their own council's staff in putting the plans into practice.

This is a comparatively new post. Community safety officers have varied backgrounds. Some have formal qualifications while others have experience in a management role that has involved communication and negotiation with different departments.

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  be excellent communicators - able to work with people of all ages and backgrounds, with good verbal skills when communicating with individuals or small groups and also for chairing meetings and giving presentations;
  
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  have good written skills - they have to take minutes of some meetings and they write reports;
  
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  be diplomatic;
  
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  be enthusiastic;
  
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  be good negotiators;
  
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  be able to motivate other people;
  
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  be resilient - able to cope if they feel that some people are being uncooperative;
  
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  have good organisational skills and must be prepared to spend a lot of time setting up, organising and preparing agendas for meetings.
  

£23,000 - £27,000 per year. Salary information is a guide only and there may be local agreements in place. See website for further information about salaries for particular positions.

Probation Officer

Probation officers work with offenders by combining continuous assessment and management of risk and dangerousness with the provision of expert supervision programmes designed to reduce re-offending.

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  interviewing offenders in the office, at court, in prison, hostels, at other penal institutions and in their homes;
  
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  preparing and presenting pre-sentence reports to the courts - each year probation helps magistrates and judges with their sentencing decisions by providing around 235,000 pre-sentence reports;
  
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  writing reports combining risk and danger assessments on prisoners to help prison governors and parole and lifer review boards determine when to release a prisoner and on what terms and conditions;
  
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  preparing records of meetings and accounts of clients' progress reports;
  
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  drawing up supervision plans for offenders in the community, on community supervision orders, and those who have received statutory licence supervision, and making appropriate referrals to offender behaviour programmes;
  
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  as 'case managers', referring offenders to a range of internal and external organisations - finding appropriate unpaid work for offenders to carry out in local communities in order to meet the punishment and reparation requirements of their community punishment;
  
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  liaising with colleagues in related areas including social services, police, education, employment, substance misuse organisations and housing (independent and voluntary sector partners);
  
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  meeting regularly with colleagues to discuss case loads and clients;
  
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  liaising with victims of serious violent, including sexually violent, crimes – the impact of the offence and victims' concerns about their future safety are an important part of the pre and post custody release risk assessment work done by probation staff;
  
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  attending court.
  

Professional training in England and Wales is the two-year-long Diploma in Probation Studies, which is managed by the 42 local probation boards collaborating as nine regional consortia. This confers probation officer status, subject to employment by a local probation board. It must be completed by everyone, regardless of the subject or level of their previous studies. Those with a first degree will find that the diploma is, in effect, a second first degree, completed in two years.

Potential candidates will need to show evidence of the following, which are often sought by employers:

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  excellent oral and written communication skills;
  
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  the ability to prioritise a busy workload;
  
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  perception, as it is necessary to make thorough and balanced assessments of people and their situations;
  
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  imagination - to devise novel and successful strategies to help offenders lead law abiding lives;
  
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  assertion, in order to maintain the appropriate level of authority.
  

The probation areas of England and Wales have been divided into nine separate consortia for the purposes of selection and recruitment. Students may apply to as many of these consortia as they wish. Selection usually takes place in the spring and adverts are placed in national and regional newspapers. To find out more about the start of the recruitment procedure go on line to the ‘Join us’ section on the NPS website – www.probation.homeoffice.gov.uk

In England and Wales the Diploma in Probation Studies is a work-based, integrated vocational and academic qualification, which normally takes two years to complete. Trainees are employed by individual services and receive a training salary, during which time they will be allocated a case load (up to half the usual qualified probation officer case load). They achieve a degree (the Integrated Degree in Community Justice), which includes a community justice NVQ level four. The NVQ is work-based, and to gain it trainee probation officers will need to complete 12 required units.

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  community justice;
  
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  management;
  
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  administration;
  
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  information technology.
  

These standards help members of staff and managers to jointly identify and address the areas where individuals are in need of training and professional development.

While studying, the salaries for TPOs range from £17,191 – £18,406 (salary data collected Dec 2005). Trainees employed by a relevant Probation Board will receive additionally Inner or Outer London Allowance payments as appropriate. Trainees in fringe areas, i.e. London suburbs, will receive additional payments where these are normally paid by a Board.

work-based training activities beyond the normal working week, compensatory time off in lieu will be given.

Drug Action Teams (DATs)

Drug Action Teams (DATs) are local partnerships charged with responsibility for delivering the National Drug Strategy at a local level, with representatives from the local authority (education, social services, and housing) health, probation, the prison service and the voluntary sector.

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  commissioning services, including supporting structures;
  
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  monitoring and reporting on performance, and;
  
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  communicating plans, activities and performance to stakeholders.
  

Each Drug Action Team consists of a DAT Chair and a DAT Co-ordinator. The DAT Chair is the most senior official within the DAT. They work on a part time basis and will also have a senior position within one of the constituent agencies (including health authorities, education, social services, housing, police, prisons and probation).

Vacancies are often advertised in national newspapers (such as The Guardian on Wednesdays) as well as on local government websites. There is no central recruitment process and DATs are responsible for the recruitment and retention of staff.