Graduates are being invited to police some of London’s toughest communities for two years as part of a new recruitment drive aimed at attracting “the brightest and best” into the Met.
Scotland Yard says its new Police Now initiative will allow participants to “develop life-changing skills” which they can use as the basis of a long-term policing career, including fast track promotion to Inspector, or take with them to other organisations.
The scheme is based on the successful Teach First initiative and Met bosses hope it’ll improve the attractiveness of policing to graduates.
Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, said: “Police Now represents a series of significant innovations in recruitment, training and development of police officers which seeks to ensure that graduates come to see policing on a par with other professions.
“It acknowledges that today policing may not always be a job for life as it was when I joined.
“Police Now gives them the opportunity to work in the community and develop their leadership skills in some of the toughest of environments with the public, and the MPS, benefiting from the energy, ideas and skills some of the brightest and the best in the country can bring.”
Mayor of London, Boris Johnson added: “We want to do all we can to attract the brightest and best to join the Met and serve Londoners and the Police Now scheme is a great example of progressive recruitment.
“Policing London’s streets is one of the most challenging and rewarding jobs in the capital and this is a fantastic new route into policing for our top graduates.”
Applications to the Police Now programme open on the 15th October 2014.
