“Boost Police Confidence with Quality, Engaging Training, Says South Yorkshire Police Federation”

Officers should be given training that is “engaging and quality” to ensure forces are benefitting from the highest quality policing, South Yorkshire Police Federation says.

Federation Chair Steve Kent said forces had the change to make training a force for good rather than a laborious “token gesture”.

He said many areas relied on online training that did not stimulate participants and often felt like wasted time.

Steve’s comments followed the College of Policing finding many forces saw training as an abstraction rather than an investment in their officers.

He said: “Training has to be good quality, it has to be engaging. It can’t just feel like a token gesture.

“Officers might wonder why I’m asking for this, but the wider context is that officers get proper risk assessment training.

“If we get that high level risk assessment training for our officers, starting with the frontline, then we’re probably far better at justifying our actions and recording them.

“It will give the officers more confidence to deal with the really difficult decisions that they actually have to make.”

Steve recognised officers were flat-out with work and they would rather get no with their job, but he stressed there were huge benefits to learning new methods.

He said: “It doesn’t have to be so regular that it loses its value, but when they do have training days they have to be really engaging, quality, and actually relevant to their roles”

“It should be about what the officers need, and maybe we should consult those officers.”