Pressure on training facilities at Peel Centre

Report: 13
Date: 7 March 2002
By: Commissioner

Summary

Increases in levels of recruitment have led to larger intakes of new officers entering Peel Centre every five weeks. This has led to pressure on classroom space, residential accommodation, facilities and staffing levels. This report outlines the impact of the large numbers of recruits and discusses measures taken to reduce that impact.

A. Recommendation

That Members of the Human Resources Committee note the contents of this report.

B. Supporting information

Background

1. In order to accommodate the planned increases in recruiting, Peel Centre expanded its capacity during 2001 so that it is now able to take intakes of 260 recruits and 40 transferees/rejoiners every five weeks. Transferees/rejoiners have a two-week course before joining Boroughs; Recruits have an 18-week Foundation course before commencing a 10-week Street Duties course on Borough. During the remainder of their probation (total of two years) they take six further weeks of continuation training.

2. A new recruit foundation course was launched in April 2001, following a design process that had wide external involvement. Each recruit intake currently has ten classes of 26 students; a study bedroom is provided for every recruit at Hendon or Mill Hill nearby.

3. Other training currently delivered at Hendon includes Detective, Driver, Traffic Warden, Management (including promotion and custody courses), Professional Development (including probationer continuation training) and IT training.

Class sizes

4. It is acknowledged that the large class sizes (currently 25 - 30) in recruit training are not ideal. The reduced scope for individual attention is likely to be disproportionately felt by the weaker students. Current class sizes are felt to be unsatisfactory by students, the Police Federation, trainers and senior managers. Facilities such as IT terminals have to be shared and opportunities for practical exercises are reduced.

5. On the other hand, large classes have contributed to a vibrant atmosphere at Hendon. Developmental support remains in place and regular assessments ensure that the high standard achieved by MPS officers is maintained. In Training Matters, the recent report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), the Adult Learning Institute described the standard of training as high, and class sizes were very large when they visited.

6. Training Matters suggests that a trainer/student ratio in the area of 2:18 would be appropriate; the MPS was closer to this ratio before recent recruiting drives. To achieve this ratio now would mean abstracting additional officers from Borough as well as building more classrooms at Hendon. Current demands of crime levels across London, security concerns and the unprecedented demand for new officers create unusual circumstances and mean that at present further abstractions are not being made. However, if any increase in recruit intakes beyond 260 is required, the recommended ratio will be taken into account in establishing by how much staffing levels should increase.

Resignations, Regulation 15 notices and recoursing

7. The retention rate has continued to improve. In 1999, a total of 140 recruits failed to graduate against a background of 1191 attested during that year. By 2001, the number of recruits who failed to graduate had reduced to 136 despite the fact that nearly twice as many (2179) recruits were attested.

8. Appendix 1 (see Supporting material) shows the number of Regulation 15 notices (warnings that performance needs to improve) issued. However, this figure is susceptible to changes in procedure and a more relevant indicator would be the number of recruits whose services are dispensed with - only one in 2001.

9. Appendix 2 (see Supporting material) demonstrates that recoursing is increasing. Large class sizes may be one of a range of factors influencing this increase, but the use of recoursing has dramatically improved the retention rate since its 1999 level of 88% and it is a facility that the Directorate of Training and Development (DTD) would wish to retain. In the first six intakes of 2001, 84% of recoursed students went on to complete the course successfully.

National Police Training (NPT) and other training organisations

10. There is no capacity within NPT for training MPS recruits and even if there were, a post-NPT conversion course would have to be resourced to familiarise recruits with MPS policies, IT procedures and documentation.

11. If parts of the course were to be delivered by other organisations it would have to be completely redesigned on a modular basis. It is likely that Training Matters will result in the development of a new national course and this may include partial delivery of courses in Further Education (FE) colleges by police staff and/or knowledge-based elements delivered by FE staff. The process to create the current course started by considering how officers needed to be trained to operate in 2002 within the MPS Mission, Vision and Values. The process involved the community and partners including the MPA, and resulted in a course that HMIC described as “fairly sophisticated in terms of placing probationer training into context [and] closely aligned to operational policing in London”.

Other options

12. Several options to increase capacity have been considered including use of a satellite site at an FE college, shortening the course and running intakes ‘back to back’ (currently there is a 2-week gap between intakes). Each option has severe disadvantages for training quality (and hence operational performance), retention of staff and students, impact on other training underway or planned and cost. Plans to increase the size of intakes still further mean that the option of shift working is being considered, but there is insufficient residential capacity at present to support an increase.

Trainers

13. Staffing levels within the Recruit Training School were increased in 2001 to accommodate intakes of 260. Every pair of classes (52 students) had one Sergeant and three Constable trainers. Taking further trainers from Borough might mean that Borough officers could not receive current mandatory training (for example, in Health and Safety) and would impact on the ability of Boroughs to run the crucial Street Duties courses. Taking trainers from elsewhere in the DTD would mean reducing or ceasing other training, particularly mandatory probationer continuation training.

14. Other training centres such as Sunbury have insufficient training accommodation, no residential accommodation, no IT or practical assessment facilities. The infrastructure to support a comprehensive recruit-training package is only at Hendon.

Residential accommodation

15. At the present time, there is sufficient accommodation at Peel Centre together with converted former MOD married quarters sited at Mill Hill to cater for the current number of recruits in training and those who have been re-coursed. Appendix 3 sets out the numbers of residential rooms, which will be available for recruits in training by the end of April 2002 (total of 1245 rooms).

16. The rooms at Mill Hill were acquired as alternative space to enable the refurbishment of the Tower blocks to be undertaken. They have been refurbished to a high standard and officers residing at Mill Hill are transported by coach to Peel Centre and back each day. The higher standard of accommodation at Mill Hill is offset by the inconvenience of travelling to Peel Centre. However, as they are now used to house the additional officers emanating from the current successful recruiting campaign they are not available as alternative accommodation during the refurbishment.

17. Residential accommodation at Peel Centre is within the three tower blocks, which are of poor standard and recently refurbished rooms in former police married quarters in Rowan Drive (a private road adjacent to the estate). The tower block accommodation is in need of comprehensive refurbishment which will be impossible to undertake until additional alternative residential accommodation is identified. Training Matters gave the cost of refurbishment of residential accommodation at Peel Centre to be in the region of £18.4 million (source MPS Investment Appraisal Report March 2001). It further states, ‘No officer should have to endure the examples of the poor standards of accommodation uncovered during this inspection.’ (This comment does not specifically single out Peel Centre for criticism)

18. PSD are currently looking for alternative residential accommodation into which recruits could be housed whilst the refurbishment process is undertaken. Options being researched at this time include leasing and refurbishment of existing MOD property at Mill Hill within the Inglis barracks itself, long-term hiring of rooms in a newly constructed hotel in Mill Hill and leasing accommodation owned by the NHSS. Costs are unknown at this time. The option of taking further married quarter units at Mill Hill has been considered and discounted because those available are not in as good a condition as those already leased and would cost considerably more to refurbish. They would only be available to the MPS until July 2003 and for this reason, they do not represent good value for money.

Other training

19. Other training continues to be delivered at Hendon, but most courses are now non-residential and the capacity to expand other training on site is no longer available. A small number of IT courses have been cancelled due to lack of classroom space but building work will soon be underway to convert the classrooms needed. It is notable that during 2001 a 42 per cent increase in training days delivered was achieved with only a 9 per cent increase in staffing levels.

Training Matters

20. Training Matters makes 59 recommendations, many relating to national rather than MPS issues. The report advocates a single training regime for the whole of the police service but recognises that, until adequate national provision is in place, it would be unwise of the MPS to join in the national provision. We would expect to be key contributors to the development of any new national model. Specific work is already underway in the MPS in many of the areas highlighted by Training Matters, for example Street Duties training.

C. Financial implication

1. Further increases in residential accommodation and staffing levels will be required if intakes increase beyond 260 recruits and 40 transferees/rejoiners.
2. The availability of residential accommodation at a viable cost needs to be explored and the source of funding needs to be identified.
3. Delivering training to intakes in excess of current numbers would require the school to move to shift working, which would create the following additional staffing requirements:

*Civil staff would incur shift allowance

4. In addition to this there would be the costs associated with selecting and training police and civil staff for the additional posts, as well as the impact on ancillary services such as catering, caretaking and site security.

D. Background papers

• HMIC Inspection Report ‘Training Matters’ January 2002

E. Contact details

Report author: Commander Peter Loughborough, Director of Training and Development 0208 358 1071

For information contact:

MPA general: 020 7202 0202
Media enquiries: 020 7202 0217/18

Appendix 3: Residential accommodation available at Peel Centre

Tower Blocks

924 Single Rooms

Rowan Drive

055 Rooms

Rowan Drive (by 30.4.02)

550 Rooms

Mill Hill

216 Rooms*

Total available rooms by 30.04.02

1245 Rooms

(Mill Hill 72 ‘D’ rooms) ‘D’ rooms are very small and not suitable for recruits studying for 18 weeks. Consequently, they are used for officers on shorter courses. Therefore, they are not included in the final reckoning of available recruit rooms.

Send an e-mail linking to this page

Feedback