Assessing skill competencies of Special Constables and translation into practice

The Special Constabulary is an important resource within police forces in order to protect and serve local communities. Many forces are considering ways to better engage with Specials, improve the experience of being a Special Constable, and increase the volume, diversity and impact of the Special Constabulary, in order to meet the needs of local communities. Alongside a general trend of expansion within many forces, some are reimagining the positions and roles of Specials within their organisational models, signifying potential movement of the Special Constabulary from the periphery to the core of policing. Despite the growing importance of the Special Constabulary in England and Wales, the evidence base remains very limited. This research, as part of the EMPAC, set out to assess the extent to which training provides Special Constables with the requisite skill competencies for their roles and their levels of confidence to translate these skills into practice. The identified skill competencies were defined in relation to the Police Professional Framework for both Constable and Detective Constable roles. The research also considers the individual qualities Special Constables have relating to their wider personal and working lives and the degree to which such qualities are harnessed to perform their role as a Special Constable in the respective force area. To achieve this, Special Constable in participating areas were invited to take part in an online survey. The survey was largely quantitative in nature and data were entered into SPSS to explore associations between key variables. Results will be interpreted in relation to the different delivery models for training and organisational strategies relating to the Special Constabulary.