NEW Metropolitan Police Competencies: 2018 Update!

Recently, the Metropolitan Police and other policing units in the UK have been trialing a brand-new set of competencies and values. Designed to more accurately reflect the working life and responsibilities of a police officer, the Metropolitan police competencies are a way more accurate way of assessing candidates, and ensuring good policing is the norm. In our last blog, we discussed the brand new values and clusters. In this blog, we’ll take a look at the Metropolitan police competencies, and what they entail!

There are three levels to each core competency, with the third level being the most advanced.

The New Metropolitan Police Competencies

Emotionally Aware

It’s very important for police officers to be emotionally aware. Not only do you need to be emotionally aware towards the needs and feelings of others, but you also need to be emotionally aware of yourself. You must be able to control your emotions when under high amounts of pressure, and exhibit strong levels of decision making. Police work is highly stressful, and will push you to your limits. Therefore, it’s vital that police employees can stay calm and collected, and manage their emotions.

Emotionally aware candidates must exhibit qualities such as:

• Implementing new ways of working, which can have a significant positive change on future working practice.
• Encouraging others to review their own performance through the lens of long-term policing.
• Playing a central role in developing a positive learning culture, taking steps to promote innovation and creativity.

Taking Ownership

In order to work as a police officer, it’s vital that you can take ownership and responsibility, and hold yourself accountable for your own actions. Part of this means accepting that sometimes minor mistakes will happen, but the way you deal with these is what is important. You must learn from your mistakes, and seek improvement-based feedback. Furthermore, it’s critical that you can take pride in your work, and recognise your own limitations. This is an incredibly important part of the Metropolitan police competencies.

Candidates who take ownership must exhibit qualities such as:

• Embracing the idea of being a role model, and using mistakes and errors as a learning process and a chance for improvement.
• Helping to instigate measures that will allow others to take responsibility in a more effective and smooth fashion.
• Looking at issues from a wider police perspective, and how they will impact the reputation of the service as a whole.
• Being someone whom others can look up to, in order to see the excellent and all-encompassing standards and values of the UK police.

Working Collaboratively

Teamwork is a fundamental part of working as a police officer, and the better you can work as part of a collaborative unit, the better level of service you can provide to the public. Good police work is about building partnerships, not just with your colleagues, but with members of the public too. You must be polite and respectful with every person that you meet, and show that the police value the ideals of teamwork, collaboration and social unity. This element of the Metropolitan police competencies is vital for passing.

Candidates who can work collaboratively must exhibit qualities such as:

• Demonstrating political awareness, and an understanding of how politics can impact on the relationship between the police and their partnership agencies.
• Helping others to build relationships with external potential partnership organisations, which could be of benefit to the police and the general public.
• Setting the standard for the way in which partnership organisations interact with and work with the police service.
• Helping to create an environment that is conducive to partnership work.

Deliver, Support and Inspire

It’s imperative that police officers understand the wider vision of the police service. You must use the police’s values in your day-to-day work, and show a dedication to working in the best interests of the public. Your positive contribution to the police is extremely important. Police officers must show an understanding of how their behaviour impacts on the reputation of the service, and strive to make a positive contribution to this at all times. You must be focused on helping your teammates to achieve high standards, whilst maintaining your own.

Candidates who can deliver, support and inspire must exhibit qualities such as:

• Constantly challenging others to maintain the vision of the police service, to the highest possible standards.
• Making conscious efforts to demonstrate to your colleagues about how specific tasks and ideas link in with the wider vision of the police.
• Helping others to understand their individual goals, comprehensibly, and how these goals fit in with the wider vision of the police.
• Monitoring changes, both internally and externally, and take steps to guarantee positive outcomes.
• Thinking in a strategic and detailed fashion, demonstrating long-term planning and knowledge.

Analyse Critically

Working as a police officer involves large amount of critical analysis. You’ll be presented with a wide variety of data, and will need to use all of this data to come to informed decisions. This is essentially what ‘taking an evidence-based approach’ means. It’s about using the evidence available to you effectively and efficiently, to gather as many facts and hard info as possible, before using this data in the most logical way.

Candidates who can analyse critically must exhibit qualities such as:

• Balancing out the risks and benefits of all decisions, with consideration on the wider impact of said decisions.
• Understanding it’s appropriate to raise concerns or challenge decisions made by those in a senior position to you.
• Using your knowledge of the wider policing to inform your decisions.
• Being willing to make difficult decisions, even if these decisions could result in significant change.

Innovative and Open Minded

The final competency challenges the mindset of the candidate. It’s extremely important that you can take an open-minded approach to police work. Not everything is straightforward and ‘by the book’. There will always be problems which require an innovative and creative solution, and it’s your job to come up with this! Furthermore, it’s essential that you can take an open mind to new ways of working, and understand that continuous development is a necessity for any police officer.

Innovative and open minded candidates must exhibit qualities such as:

• Implementing new ways of working, which can have a significant positive change on future working practice.
• Encouraging others to review their own performance through the lens of long-term policing.
• Playing a central role in developing a positive learning culture, taking steps to promote innovation and creativity.
• Taking part in creating new initiatives, with police partnership agencies.
• Taking accountability for improvement and change within the police force.