We want to see all forces maintaining agreed training standards (IL4SC) for Special Constabulary officers while new national standards are being developed. We believe that all Special Constables should be supported to achieve the same standards as regular officers.
ASCCO (ASCO’s predecessor) agreed national training standards for basic training for the Special Constabulary and the level required to achieve Independent Patrol Status (IPS) as part of the first National Strategy for the Special Constabulary:
Our standard is IL4SC and we recommended this to all Forces.
What’s happening now?
There is still variation across the country with some forces achieving the standards and others failing to provide the basic curriculum. The planned Professional Educational Qualifications Framework (PEQF) which is being developed by the College of Policing will see substantial changes in approaches to training standards and approaches for regular officers – including graduate entry, graduate apprenticeships and work-placed assessment. We challenged the College on their suggestion that Special Constables would not need to achieve the same standards. The NPCC supported us in that position. The result is that Special Constables will have to reach the same standards as regular officers. We are now working with the College to work out how the Special Constabulary fit within these new requirements.
We want to see all forces maintaining agreed training standards (IL4SC) for Special Constabulary officers while new national standards are being developed. We believe that all Special Constables should be supported to achieve the same standards as regular officers.
ASCCO represented the Special Constabulary in the College of Policing Leadership Review resulting in the College policy that all training should be available to Special Constables as well as regular officers – regardless of rank – provided there is an appropriate business case for this. It has even been accepted that Special Constables can apply for the Strategic Command Course that prepares regular senior officers and police staff for appointments of Assistant Chief Constable or Assistant Chief Officer and above. The course is currently a full-time commitment for 4-6 months and we are keen to put forward appropriate candidates to both test the agreement and give recognition to the skills and value offered by the Special Constabulary.
There is currently considerable national variation in the way that Special Constables are trained and deployed. Some forces put Special Constables into Neighbourhood Policing and don’t allow them to do response work. Others utilize Special Constabulary primarily on response. Some train to Public Order Level II standards and deploy in that role while others deploy without training to this standard. An increasing number of forces are now being more imaginative and using the skills of Special Constables in investigation, cyber-crime and economic crime or in other specialist roles like Mounted policing or marine units. We believe that the police service would be enriched by greater access by Special Constables to the variety of roles in which they have been shown to have a positive impact.
We have written formally to the College of Policing CEO to ask that the College set standards and training requirements across Special Constabulary ranks. The power for the College to do this was written in to the Policing and Crime Act 2017 because of our lobbying with the Home Office and Policing Minister.
We want the College of Policing to set standards and training requirements across Special Constabulary ranks as they for regular police ranks to ensure Special Constables have the opportunity to demonstrate they can achieve the same standards as regular officers and have access to training to support them to do so.