15/03/2012

Police Officers To Face Annual Fitness Test

Police officers could be due to face annual fitness tests with disciplinary procedures for offices that fail three times in a row.

The recommendation is one of many made in an independent review commissioned by Home Secretary Theresa May to look at police pay and recruitment procedures.

Carried out by Tom Winsor the review also says there should be higher minimum educational standards and some recruits should join directly as inspectors and superintendents.

The BBC's home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said the review - which only affects England and Wales – would give chief constables powers to make police officers compulsorily redundant to cut costs - at present they can do this only if police have served for 30 years or more.

The report found that 52% of male officers in the Metropolitan Police were overweight with 1% being “morbidly obese”.

"Police officers have had enough of the constant state of uncertainty and the deliberate, sustained attack on them by this government,” Police Federation's Chairman Paul McKeever has said.

"They want to get on with the job they joined to do, serving their communities, and they expect the support of government. Instead they find themselves contending with cuts to pay and conditions of service, increased stress and pressures."

(H)


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