Direct Entry Detectives

Last updated on July 23rd, 2023 at 11:32 am

Time to put some meat on the bones and look at DE Detectives in a bit more detail.

I have restricted my interest to the Metropolitan Police who ‘invented’ the scheme. I should point out that there are some anomalies in their data that I don’t begin to understand.

According to data supplied under the FOIA to somebody else, the initial campaign in June 2017 attracted applications from 4,437 people, 2,134 female, 2,290 male plus 1 who preferred not to say.

The ensuing ‘short listing’ saw 2,293 fall by the wayside leaving 1,292 females and 1,198 males still in the process.  Only 425 candidates are shown as having failed the initial stage of the process, so I can only assume that they withdrew voluntarily for their own reasons.

Next came a ‘Verbal Reasoning’ stage. Of the candidates still remaining 231 did not complete the process, 111 females and 120 males.  Of the candidates who were successful at Verbal Reasoning 1,013 were female and 896 were male, plus 1 who preferred not to say.

The third, and final, stage was an interview.

264 females and 261 males were successful at this final stage, plus 1 who preferred not to say.

That makes a total of 527 successful candidates.

The vast majority of all candidates were in the 20-30 age range.

Compare this to the information that I was supplied by the Met.

Under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act could you please provide me with the following information?

How many so-called Direct Entry Detectives have been recruited?

How many of that number have resigned or been dismissed to date?

271 direct entry detectives were recruited since May 17 (joiners since the scheme was launched)

1 dismissed and 19 resigned

That doesn’t really correspond with the data released to A. N. Other previously unless 50% of the successful applicants went off and did something else instead.

Anyway, nearly 4,500 people applied to be Direct Entry Detectives and either 527 or 271 were successful.  I’m not sure what the recruitment campaign and subsequent training would have cost the Met, but I do hope they thought it was worth it.  The only positive that I can take from this so far is that males and females were almost equally represented at every stage of the process.

No ethnicity data was revealed either to myself or A. N. Other.