Devon & Cornwall Police
Record 1
Freedom of Information Act Request No: 006320/13
1) Please provide details of any kind of fitness test police officers must undergo.
This includes information on what the test entails, what the frequency of these tests
are and what kind of officers must take them.
2) From the last 12 months, please supply the number of police officers who have
failed the most recent fitness test at least once. Please offer a breakdown of which
unit these officers were in. Please supply this information as raw numbers as well
as the percentage this number represents.
3) From the last 12 months, please indicate whether the most recent fitness test
was under the new fitness tests (I am referring to this:
http://www.policemag.co.uk/updates/1418.aspx).
5) From the last 12 months, please provide the number of police officers who have
received a punishment for failing fitness related tests. Please provide, in as much
detail as possible, the punishment for this failure and the nature of this failure (e.g.
missed bleep test by X seconds, received fine). Provide details for the final part of
this request only if it does not contradict the FOI Act.
4) From the last 12 months, please indicate the number of people training to join the
police who fail the fitness tests at least once. As with above, please indicate what
these tests entail and what the number of failures represents as a percentage.
5) From the last 12 months, please indicate the money spent on training police
officers who are considered overweight or below the standard of health/fitness
required.
6) If this request falls within compliance costs, please provide the number of police
officers who are classed as overweight and obese according to the BMI scale. If the
force keep data on police weight without using BMI as a scale, then please provide
data for police officers considered overweight using your scale.
The People Management and Learning Department have provided the following
information:
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1) Please provide details of any kind of fitness test police officers must undergo. This
includes information on what the test entails, what the frequency of these tests are
and what kind of officers must take them.
Devon & Cornwall Police conduct in-service fitness testing for student officers and for
officers in certain specialist roles or for officers who will be called upon to undertake
certain specialist activities. These specialist roles or activities are the Police Support
Unit, Dog Handlers, Armed Response Vehicle Officers and officers performing Dynamic
Intervention.
In all cases, the test includes a 15 metre shuttle run followed by a strength protocol.
15 metre Shuttle Run Student Officers - 5:4
Police Support Unit - 6:3
Armed Response Vehicle - 9:4
Dynamic Intervention - 10:5
Dog Handlers - 5:7
Strength Protocols Student Officers - complete a push/pull test on the Concept 2 dyno. They must achieve
an average of at least 34kg on the push and 35kg on the pull over 5 repetitions
Police Support Unit - 40kg bag push and pull test. 5 push and 5 pulls held in position for
5 seconds each time
Armed Response Vehicle and Dynamic Intervention - 20M 80kg bag drag to simulate
assisting an injured member of the public or a colleague to safety
Dog Handlers - 35kg “dog lift” to simulate lifting over a 5 bar gate that is 4 ' high
Tests are conducted on an annual basis.
Fitness tests for all officers required to respond will commence in January 2014 (in line
with WINSOR recommendations)
2) From the last 12 months, please supply the number of police officers who have
failed the most recent fitness test at least once. Please offer a breakdown of which
unit these officers were in. Please supply this information as raw numbers as well
as the percentage this number represents.
Student Officers- 86 tested and 2 failures
Armed Response – 98 tested and 1 failure
Dynamic Intervention – 26 tested and 3 failures
Police Support Unit - 358 and 0 failures
Dog Handlers - 37 and 1 failures
Devon & Cornwall Police do not record percentages. The Freedom of Information Act
does not require the creation of information in order to comply with a request.
3) From the last 12 months, please indicate whether the most recent fitness test
was under the new fitness tests (I am referring to this:
<<http://www.policemag.co.uk/updates/1418.aspx>>).
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See breakdown above in Q1. Only student officers currently have the generic test, the
test is more stringent for some operational units as above. The generic test for the
majority of officers will commence January 2014 and will follow the test as outlined in the
article.
5) From the last 12 months, please provide the number of police officers who have
received a punishment for failing fitness related tests. Please provide, in as much
detail as possible, the punishment for this failure and the nature of this failure (e.g.
missed bleep test by X seconds, received fine). Provide details for the final part of
this request only if it does not contradict the FOI Act.
Officers are given support and encouragement to pass the test and are given time to
achieve appropriate fitness levels. The process for dealing with failure is the
Unsatisfactory Performance Process (UPP) which has prescribed statutory methodology
for dealing with continued failure to pass the test. It is dealt with under the performance
part of these regulations and not the conduct part and is therefore, not ‘punishment’.
3) From the last 12 months, please indicate the number of people training to join the
police who fail the fitness tests at least once. As with above, please indicate what
these tests entail and what the number of failures represents as a percentage.
See Q2 Student officers
5) From the last 12 months, please indicate the money spent on training police
officers who are considered overweight or below the standard of health/fitness
required.
Officers are expected to take responsibility for ensuring they are fit and remain fit so
Devon & Cornwall Police do not spend money training officers who are overweight or
below standard. They are expected to do so in their own time. Therefore, no cost is held.
6) If this request falls within compliance costs, please provide the number of police
officers who are classed as overweight and obese according to the BMI scale. If the
force keep data on police weight without using BMI as a scale, then please provide
data for police officers considered overweight using your scale.
We do not record weight for officers.
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