My force is holding an assessment centre for dog section applicants soon. It has been heavily implied that one of the assessments will be laying a track and the instruction will be something along the lines of "Lay a track suitable of a 6yr old GP dog in line with NCTAS requirements"

Does anyone know what the specifics of the requirements are? (I.e number of legs, length of track, number of items of property, differences depending on the age of the dog). I have looked at the CoP website and the dog standard but they say that the specifics of the NCTAS are on a separate website and password protected.

Hi there! I posted here in August about an NIE practice tool I built. It's now Police Law Prep and covers the NIE, NPPF Sergeants and NPPF Inspectors under one account.

There's now (finally!!!) an iPhone and iPad app in the UK App Store!

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/police-law-prep/id6809158032

I've also been busy on the app itself since August. There's now a 7-day free trial on the website with no card needed, so you can use the whole thing across all three exams before you pay anything:

https://policelawprep.co.uk/trial/

I've added 286 written scenario cards, and the NIE bank has been checked line by line against the law this autumn. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 changes in force on 17 October are in, while provisions not yet in force sit on a dated watch list. A monthly automated check watches 22 core legislation and guidance pages for changes.

The mock exam now runs under exam conditions, with a question grid, flag-and-return and a time per question. It works offline once you've opened a workspace, there's a dark mode, and the Sergeants bank has been through the same check against primary law as the NIE one.

If you'd like to have a look, four complete NIE topics are free with no account needed:

https://policelawprep.co.uk/free/

Full access is £15 a month, covering 143 topics, 1,738 cards and 2,594 practice questions. Each question explains the right answer and every wrong option.

If you're paying yourself, a force or training team can fund access at £75 per officer per sitting window or £150 per officer per year, with one invoice against a purchase order. Here's the page to forward to whoever runs training:

https://policelawprep.co.uk/forces/

I'd really appreciate feedback!

(If you're an Android user, let me know, I haven't started on that yet, but will be doing so this week 😎)

Hi all,

Looking for some advice, particularly from serving police officers or anyone familiar with traffic offences in England.

A family member has received a Conditional Offer of Fixed Penalty from West Midlands Police for allegedly driving without due care and attention, contrary to Section 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.

The offer is £100 and 3 penalty points or a court visit where in my personal experience, the increased risk of more points and costs.

The problem is that the letter doesn’t explain what the driver actually did. It simply provides the date, time, location and offence description. There’s no mention of an unsafe manoeuvre, failure to give way, poor observation or any other specific driving behaviour.
We’re not asking for the prosecution’s evidence at this stage. We simply want to understand what conduct is being alleged before deciding whether to accept the penalty or contest it.

We’ve attempted to telephone the Central Ticket Office, but the number only leads to a voicemail service, with no opportunity to speak to anyone. The recorded message also states that they won’t discuss mitigating circumstances, although that’s not what we’re asking about.

I’ve since come across Section 75(7)(a) of the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, which appears to require a conditional offer to contain sufficient particulars of the circumstances to give reasonable information about the alleged offence.

My questions are:
Is it normal for a careless driving fixed penalty to be issued without identifying the specific driving behaviour?
Does simply stating the offence, date, time and location satisfy the requirements of Section 75(7)(a)?
Is there a way of obtaining clarification without having to elect a court hearing?
If the police refuse to clarify the allegation, would that have any bearing on proceedings should the driver contest the matter?

The deadline to respond is 28 October, so we’re particularly concerned about having to choose between accepting three points for something that hasn’t been explained or risking a potentially greater penalty in court just to find out what the allegation is.
For clarity, the initial letter tells us nothing and simply asks for information on who was operating the vehicle at the time of the alleged offence.

I’d appreciate any insight into how this is normally handled in practice.

Does anyone know when the new cautions are coming out and when the PND’s are being being scrapped (met)

Before I make an absolute plonker of myself asking this in person, I thought I’d ask here first.

I was awarded a Queen’s Jubilee medal and a King’s Coronation medal during previous service outside the police. I’ve since joined the police and am approaching my passing-out parade.

Would I wear these with my uniform for the parade? My reading of the guidance suggests I would, but I’d appreciate a steer from anyone who knows the protocol.

They were properly awarded, but I don’t want to turn up looking like I’m claiming a longer policing career before I’ve even worked my first shift 😂

Is wearing them the normal thing to do, despite having earned them in another service?

Some of us are working 1600-0400 and some 1900-0700 tonight. At 01:59 the clocks will go back to 01:00, making it a 13 hour long shift. Can we claim anything at all? I’ve been in 5 years and somehow managed to avoid this shift every year until now. Hour overtime? Reasonable meal expense due to over 12 hours maybe?

Was just curious as to whether people felt that we should have a specific mobile phone exemption when working as long as it's for work purposes, as far as I am aware we only have an exemption to use our radios. This creates an issue when trying to use work phones in order to operate ANPR and or access call logs. Whilst I appreciate we shouldn't be driving down the road scrolling CAD's, the current model requires you to pull over and turn your engine off simply to press refresh on ANPR. I am aware various states in the USA have similar exemptions for use of a mobile phone for a policing purpose, was just curious as to others thoughts ?

Genuinely fed up with terrible supervisors who have absolutely no idea what it means to lead a team. The job is already as difficult as it is with staff shortage, unmanageable workload, difficult suspects, etc. The worst part is, they always seem to be oblivious to the havoc they case. 0 leadership qualities, but because they passed an exam and did well on the board, they get the role.

Inspectors and above care about little else aside from making sure the message they want pushed out is done so.

I can go on and on and on, but I’ll end it here.

TJF.

Edit: I just want to say that when you do come across supervisors with great leadership qualities, it’s such a breath of fresh air.

Hello all,

I am aware already that the guidance for members of the public is not to commit an offence when moving for a vehicle of the emergency services (such as going through a red light Etc)

there was a thread recently on the UK Driving sub about this and it got me thinking about it again.

apologies if I don’t word this correctly but your on a random emergency call, and your driving the police car/van would it annoy you even if the member of the public didnt move and followed the rules of the law set out?

(this is not where they are not paying attention but in an case where tech they cant and should not do so.

Hi all, NE NPT officer who wants to move to PVP as a detective. I love being on the beat and controlling my own workload, but I have had enough of dealing with stuff that the police shouldn't be touching. I joined to help and the job prevents me from doing so. I have been working alongside PVP on and off for a short period and fancy making the jump. Before I do so, are there any PVP officers that would advocate the decision? I think I just want someone to tell me it's the right thing to do.

My partner/girlfriend and I are both police officers. Three weeks ago she was served with papers for gross misconduct and also informed that she was under investigation for a triable either way offence. DPS aren't investigating me for anything.

I hold management vetting for one of my roles. My questions are thus:

1. If the worst happens and my partner receives a criminal conviction, will this affect my vetting? If so how much, is it fill in the notifiable association stuff and all sorted carry on, or are we talking revoking my vetting?

2. Would the same be the case if she's dismissed for gross misconduct?

I appreciate that I've had to leave out quite a lot of information for privacy reasons but I don't really know who to go to with this one as at this stage it's a hypothetical question.

Anyone in the met that has changed bcu. What’s the process like and how do you go about it

How did we all get on?
I squeezed through with around 60%! Turns out three hours passes a lot quicker during an exam than a constant watch

I know CoP has posted on X that the results are being released today, however I've not received an email to state such?

Anyone else or just me?

Edit: And as is by magic, email confirmation has now been sent out

In my area it takes two hours to book a prisoner in at a centralised custody area. When we used to book prisoners in at local custody suites it took half an hour.

How is this an improvement, how is this good use of time?

Everyone in this thread seems very misinformed. Being recorded as a suspect is not the same as having a criminal record. If the occurrence was NFA’d, this wouldn’t show up on a DBS check.

Edit: I have been informed that this can actually show up on a DBS check, perhaps a policy change is in order.

Hi all, hope your day is going well.

I have a question around mobile phone use while driving if I may.

I saw a van driver yesterday who had his phone mounted on a cradle attached to his windscreen.

He was tapping on the screen of the phone with his thumb and his fingers were wrapped around the phone (and cradle) while driving. The phone was still attached to the cradle which was still attached to the screen.

His driving was impaired, so he was definitely committing *an* offence, but was it the offence of using a hand held mobile phone while driving?

As the title. Purely wondering out of curiosity if there is any overlap at all or if it is simply as soon as you cross the border you lose any and all powers.

I've been made aware that PSD want to serve regs for misuse of police systems to me. I have no idea what this is about as I haven't misused anything, only been told to come in for a meeting with PSD where they can serve papers.

Any advice on this matter as it's quite stressful and I've heard gross misconduct mentioned?

I've spoken to the fed who said they will ring me back when someone's free.

Has anyone been in this situation before? Could it just be a mistake? Will they try to arrest me?

Edit: fed called, said to say nothing and sign papers. Ask any questions I may have about the process and then to contact the fed once it's done.

I appreciate all the advice and comments.

Been looking at a little Larry? Is this still the best one?

I have no spare klick fast on my stabby so need something I can put in on the molle.

Cheers

Do the federation ever reach out to officers who are off long term sick? Or occupational health/ wellbeing etc? Or is it reliant on the person off sick to get in contact?

Has anyone been issued with the new AFO/ARV uniform from the contract that's supposed to be a national standard for ARV's?

A couple from my team have been issued with some new uniform to trial but appears to be Chinese made Airsoft gear rather than what I would expect from a government contract. The specific manufacturer was Emersongear, seems better quality than what we had but just wondering if anyone had got new uniform recently?

As per title, does anyone have any niche or good way of remembering public order offences, I know them but tend to get them muddled up.

For example like traffic offence 163 stop for me etc.