Promotion Needs To Be More Attractive And Attainable

SOUTH Yorkshire Police has a “creeping” problem around encouraging the right people to go for promotion to higher ranks, the Federation has said.

According to the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW)’s latest Pay and Morale Survey, 10% of South Yorkshire Police officers went for promotion last year but less than 1% were successful, around 4% were not successful and around 6% were still completing the promotion process.

The PFEW said that, nationally, there was a lack of protected learning time (PLT) for officers to study for their exams when they went for promotion. The College of Policing is proposing a new system involving modular learning, which it says “is more structured, more open and creates more opportunities for people”.

The Chair of South Yorkshire Police Federation, Steve Kent, said that low rates of promotion were less of an issue for his force than making sure that higher ranks were an attractive job prospect.

Steve said: “I don’t necessarily think we’ve got low rates of promotion, but it’s more like a low interest in promotion. We’re getting people through the door, but we need to do more to encourage the right people to go for the job. We need to make the senior ranks more attractive, especially considering questions of work/life balance.

“There are ample promotion opportunities in South Yorkshire Police, and the force has put things in place so that when Sergeants and Inspectors get promoted, we have a specific department that comes in and gives them really bespoke training. It’s all moving in the right direction.

“But beyond Sergeant, we’ve got to make those roles attractive for people to work hard to get to. It’s not a major problem in our force at the minute, but it’s creeping up.”