Succession planning and career development scrutiny?

The Metropolitan Police Authority is responsible for recruiting and appointing all senior officers in the Met. We want to ensure that the quality and diversity of those coming forward in the next decade continues to be of the high calibre we are used to seeing and Londoners deserve.

Top class leaders are thin on the ground, and this problem will only exacerbate unless current arrangements for identifying, developing and accelerating promotion at all ranks are fully addressed. The Met’s Director of Human Resources has already commissioned some work to look at developing a more representative workforce, particularly in terms of leadership roles. However, it would be too easy to assume that the Authority’s concerns are being fully addressed. This may not necessarily the case and we carried out this comprehensive scrutiny to investigate the issues around succession planning and career development in order to address the needs of the Metropolitan Police Service in the 21st Century.

The Police Federation places

The Police Federation places an absolute premium on the need for senior officers to have experience of life on the beat. While we broadly agree with this, we believe that very shortly we will have to introduce a scheme that recruits the best talent from a variety of backgrounds and exposes them to experience of life policing London’s streets.

Intensive training will emphasise leadership and the best will be fast tracked through the ranks, while those falling short of high standards will not be advanced.

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