Met police firearms

[Fedster + 1,307]

One-off round is only taking on people with skills to interact with county's large eastern European population.

Lincolnshire Police is launching a recruitment drive exclusively for those able to speak a second language.

The force is the second in England to make such a move – after the Met did so in 2015 and 2016.

Those wishing to join the force will have to speak either Polish, Latvian or Lithuanian so that they can help interact with the large eastern European communities in the force area.

Lincolnshire Police says the policy will help the force “to improve its service to communities across the county, and particularly in Boston and South Holland”.

Boston is the UK town with the highest proportion of residents from eastern Europe.

Chief Constable Bill Skelly said: “We are always looking at how we can improve our service to residents and language barriers often prevent us from giving the very best service to residents who speak limited English.

"We have to be flexible and adjust our workforce to the needs of communities or we are not being efficient in the way we work.

“Having police officers with these particular language skills will be a huge benefit to our investigations and help to ensure vital information is not missed.

"This will also help us to safeguard the public, support victims of crime, solve more cases and bring offenders to justice – all at a much quicker rate than we currently can.”

He added: “It is essential we bridge these gaps with our communities and we will continue to put the right people with the right skills in positions where they can make a huge difference.” 

Last year the force limited its search for new PCs to those who live in the force area. This requirement has now been dropped, with applicants for the £22k-a-year posts needing to have lived in the UK for two years.

A spokesman added they are hoping to take on six-12 bilingual recruits and that this will be a one-off exercise.

Lincolnshire Police Federation chairman Jon Hassall said: "I’m more than happy to support it. The more we get people that communities feel are part of them, the more we will demonstrate that we treat people fairly – which we do."

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[Fedster + 1,307]

Surely this just incentives people not to learn English? Self-defeating in a way.

[Zulu 22 + 4,576]

Far cheaper to employ an interpreter, when needed. Does anyone believe that an foreign speaking officer will be available at all times, at all incidents. As has been said above those coming to this country should learn to speak the language. 

[SimonT + 1,185]

Looking forward to working with you and your special skills. Pay you more for it? Nope. Want to change to a special unit? But we need that skill of yours. Transfer to another division? Nope. 

[Hyphen + 693]

This is nothing more than a gimmick really. They’re looking for 6-12 cops from a one off recruitment exercise. So factor in shifts, leave, courses, sickness etc is this really going to make any meaningful impact? 

It may help at the odd job or processing the odd prisoner but as Zulu says you would just get an interpreter or use language line when at a scene.

[a-bothan-spy 81]

Abhorrent.

[MerseyLLB 8,426]

I'm actually receptive to skills based recruitment.

There's nothing to say officers need to be a foreign national.

They identified a skills gap and they are recruiting for it.

 

[Zulu 22 + 4,576]

Far cheaper to use an interpreter. What about recruiting a Pattoise speaker as well

[Sceptre + 2,701]

Has anyone here actually ever had a good result from language line? I've been left pretty unimpressed every time I've used it.

Having officers with language skills can be invaluable when you've downloaded a phone in another language and things like that - it's more straightforward than getting an interpreter to spend ages transcribing them all for you, and google translate isn't very good when people are talking in text speak. 

This isn't any more objectionable than recruiting AFOs, detectives or people at a certain rank - as Mersey says, the job is filling a skills gap.

[obsidian_eclipse + 1,202]

Wouldn't it be cheaper to put officers on a language course?

[MerseyLLB 8,426]

On 23/12/2017 at 18:51, obsidian_eclipse said:

Wouldn't it be cheaper to put officers on a language course?

No because I can speak a good level of GCSE French...which leaves me floundering when local regional dialects and slang, phrases, euphemisms are thrown into the mix.

Sure local cops should learn key phrases if they have a notable demographic in their area but to attain a gold standard of verbal and written comprehension of a language could take years.

[Beaker 817]

If it was another specialist skill would it cause any discussion? What if they said they wanted some people with advanced computer skills with an aim to improve investigations related to computers? Or people with safeguarding skills with experience of child protection? There wouldn't be any discussion about it.

 

It is just another skill that some people have, and it desirable. Not like they are saying that everyone from now on needs to speak an Eastern European language is it?

 

 

 

 

[junior_7178 62]

I'd be interested to know what the figure/ratio was during the last general recruitment campaign with regard to applications received/successful candidates.

It would then be interesting to see the same figure for this recruitment campaign once complete.