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Two-thirds of CID detectives in Met are not trained detectives
Justin Davenport12.05.09
Scotland Yard is short of almost 2,000 trained detectives, it was revealed today.
Just one in three of the force's regular CID officers are fully trained detectives, leaving the Met with a drastic shortage of expertise to solve crime.
Hundreds are trainees and others are uniformed officer transferred to CID to make up numbers.
The blunders that allowed two rapists free to continue attacks on women prior to their convictions in March have been blamed on the shortages. The Met's handling of the inquiries into John Worboys and Kirk Reid is now the subject of separate investigations by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
The figures were disclosed by the Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers. But the Met today conceded it had a problem finding and retaining CID officers, with 880 trainee detectives currently in the 3,000-strong CID.
A spokeswoman said the latest figures showed the Met had 1,293 trained detective constables and 880 trainee detectives. There were no immediate figures for the number of uniform officers on CID.
Assistant Commissioner John Yates has now ordered a sweeping reform of CID, whose officers are based in the 32 boroughs, by making use of highly trained officers from specialist squads.
Once a detective has completed at least five years on a specialist unit such as the Flying Squad they will be transferred to a borough post for at least two years.
A spokeswoman said: “There are a number of challenges mainly around not having enough officers who want to become detectives these days.
“There is experience in specialist squads and we want to spread that around all the areas, including Territorial Policing, which includes CID.”
Peter Smyth, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said that in the past detectives had become stuck in specialist squads and the training and expertise they picked up was not passed on to CID units or borough-based detective squads.
Mr Smyth added that less and less people were interested in the career of a detective.
“When I joined everyone wanted to be a detective but today the shift patterns of uniform are much more attractive and detectives face a more difficult work-life balance. There is also a lot more paperwork these days. “
Mr Smyth said that in the past 10 years the Met had created more specialist units which had left borough CID units as the “poor relation”.
“This means that you have relatively inexperienced officers carrying out investigations which can be quite complex. I don't think that is fair."
To qualify as a detective police have to go through a selection process, undergo a six-week course at the Met's Crime Academy and then pass a national exam. Officers only then qualify as a detective constable after two years in post.
The issue is to be raised at the Police Federation annual conference, which starts today, CID units are responsible for investigating serious assaults, burglaries, arson attacks and fraud among other crimes.
Borough-based Sapphire units are responsible for investigating rape and serious sex attacks.
Mistakes by Sapphire units in London left serial sex attackers Worboys and Reid free to attack scores of women.
In both cases detectives failed to follow evidence that should have been used to remove them from the streets.
Two years ago a CID unit was also criticised over failures to investigate a gang who went on to murder 22-year-old TV engineer Peter Woodhams in front of his family.
Reader views (8)
Being a retired Met Police CID officer who joined the CID in 1973 I can only agree that old system created better trained detectives than are now available. One could not apply to become a Temporary Detective Constable until you had shown an ability to catch criminals by your own initiative. Then you had to pass a divisional board and if successful you joined a local crime squad as a TDC. Following this you would attend the Detective Training School at Hendon for your initial TDC's course. Following which you would if you proved your worth as a TDC attend a twelve week intensive course, again at the Detective Training School at Hendon, in Criminal Law and Investigation. This exam was probably the hardest I have ever taken. At the time I was told we had to learn aspects of the criminal law and procedures that the Law Society allowed 14 months for its students to learn. On top of this we were taught investigation skills. The course was attended by officers from around the Country, and the pass mark for Met Officers was 75%, other forces allowed 60%. Failure meant a return to uniform duties. There is no doubt in my mind that the average Met Detective Constable/Sergeant in that era knew more about the Criminal Law and the investigation of crime than many Senior detectives of today do. The loss of these skills I believe along with downplaying the importance of skills, training and selection of suitable officers for CID duties has cost the Met Police and citizens of London dearly.
- Dave, London
So where are the applications for these positions???? My husband has 15 years SA detective experience and would just love to get into the police force. GW
- Gw, Ashford, UK
What do we know, community 'plastic' officers, now not trained CID detectives - no wonder the Police Force is a JOKE.
- K Lee, Cheshunt, UK
The Met is such a big firm nowadays, with so many oppotunities once your in (CO19, TSG, Safer Neighbourhoods, Traffic, Transport for London etc) that the CID is suffering from having to compete for recruits with everything else out there. Despite what the public may think, local CID is not an elite within the Met anymore.... The hard thing to get into is CO19.
- Saganami, London
Quite interesting and very true - the reason it is interesting is that this lack of sensible proper trainning has been one of the main causes, with the inane methods of recruitment and even more inane the promotion to senior positions that has caused and been responsible for the awful incompetant and inefficient state of Police.
Even more suprising comments, experiences and information have been written on "blogs" all over the place for many years...but have never been supported, admitted, understood or recognised.
A strange incompetant land we live in!
- Ed, london
The above comments are spot on.
The main reason why CID units are under so much pressure is the outrageous incompetence and politicisation of ACPO who, in cahoots with this lousy government have "watered-down" the assessment and selection procedures.
In the past you had to show yourself to be a proactive, hard-working PC who had experience working in plain-clothes on a Borough Crime Squad.
Compare that to the past few years where now you just finish your 2 year probation, jump through ridiculous hoops in the application process (Nu-Labour/ACPO drivel of competency-based assessment frameworks more interested in your diversity qualifications that how many arrests you've made)and then get thrown into an overworked,understaffed CID Office where you suffocate under a horrendous workload of up to 30 serious cases!
The sad truth is that Senior Officers in the Met (and other forces) have become ACPO/Nu-Labour liberal puppets more obsessed with promotion-chasing and diversity than catching criminals, improving morale or implementing proper crime-fighting strategies.
We need a massive shakeout of the out-of-touch ACPO and these senior desk-jockey officers combined with the scrapping of the horrendous bureacracy involved in making arrests.
- A.Non Pc, London,UK
The current difficulty in recruiting suitable officers into the CID arises from the changes imposed on the the department following incidents of corruption in the 1970s and early 80s. It used to be that officers who wanted a career with the CID had to show initiative and detective ability by applying to join one of the divisional Crime Squads. Once selected they were expected to patrol the streets in plain clothes generating their own work load by using local intelligence sources, knowledge of local criminals and concentrating on crime hotspots. Every arrest was fully investigated and dealt with by the arresting officer and his/her squad partner. In this way individual officers became competent in all aspects of interviewing techniques, evidence gathering and the associated legal paperwork. There was always a high degree of competition between squad members and adjoining divisional crime squads to be top of the monthly performance tables. After something like 2 years of consistent achievement you became eligible for a central CID selection board. Again this was a highly competetive process and quiet often officers had to sit more than one selection board before acceptance into the CID.
Since the mid 1980s this has all changed. Officers are now plucked from the uniform branch, often just after completion of their probationary period, dumped into a CID environment and expected to get on with it without any experience in dealing with criminals or criminal investigations.
- Paul, South London
Like so many trades and professions becoming a detective (in the Met and City forces anyway) used to involve an apprenticeship that could last several years before an officer was selected for a 13 week course at Hendon's Detective Training School. Training would begin on each division's beat crimes unit that would investigate fairly minor crimes, many of which wouldn't even get a glance today. The next step was the divisonal crime squad which would target local offenders, burglars, robbers etc. Today, like so many other forms of training, a national system of accreditation based on a competency framework has been introduced under the auspices of National Police Training or whatever they are called this week. A nice little earner for ACPO who I beleive has a major interest. Distance learning and the renaming of the Detective Training School to The Crime Academy on the Hendon 'Campus'! Laughable! More hoops to negotiate, more hurdles to jump - the effect? Well as outlined in the article. Peter Smythe is also correct about the introduction of government target led specialist squads and the awful bureacracy involved in prisoner processing where the lawyers in the form of the CPS, with government assistance, have contrived to make a once easy and genuinely fast track system the cumbersome elephant it is today. Beware the huge loss of skilled officers across the board in the next few years - not many will want to stay on after their 30 years! PCSOs? Ha! HA!
- Ranter, Maidstone, UK
