Surrey PCC joins 15 others telling the Home Secretary not all officers need a degree

They're calling on Suella Braverman to drop the blanket requirement.

Surrey PCC Lisa Townsend welcoming Surrey Police's new recruits at passing out parades in October
Author: Ellie CloutePublished 1st Nov 2022

Surrey's Police and Crime Commissioner is one of sixteen who have written to the Home Secretary about not all officers needing a degree.

Lisa Townsend's concerned that the requirement is excluding a variety of people who would be a great fit for the role.

Suella Braverman is being asked to drop the requirement of all officers to have a degree to avoid those with relevant experience and expertise from missing out on a role with the police, including veterans and older recruits.

The letter has warned the Home Secretary that ten percent of their officers are now stuck in classrooms instead of on the front line, and are calling for regulations to be changed to allow more traditional training for those getting into the armed forces.

The Surrey PCC said: "I want us to be able to attract people from right across society who want to be police officers.

"Maybe mothers who want to come back into work and want to be police officers. Those people who have been in the military or the armed forces, who maybe didn't have a degree because perhaps they went into the military at 16 or 18, have come out and would make brilliant police officers, and I don't think they should have to gain an academic degree in order to do that."

The concerns of many Police and Crime Commissioners across the country is losing new recruits from different backgrounds due to the time being spent having to learn, or not wanting to undertake a degree to get into the career.

Ms Townsend joined up with her fellow PCCs to send the letter to Suella Braverman.

"It's something that I think a group of us feel quite strongly about, which is that police officers shouldn't need to have a degree in order to be out on our streets and protecting the public.

"I actually think it's part of a wider problem really, not just in policing, but wider, traditionally what have been not degree professionals, so nursing, policing, childcare."

The PCCs include: Kent; Lancashire; Derbyshire; Nottinghamshire; Gloucestershire; Dorset; Hampshire; Bedfordshire; Humberside; Surrey; Thames Valley; Warwickshire; Essex; Leicestershire; Northamptonshire; and Cleveland.