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The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and Skills for Justice have joined forces on a project to support police forces in England and Wales to address staffing and staff development issues.
The project, which aims to unify and standardise strategic workforce planning processes, aims to support improved recruitment and retention activities through greater alignment between workforce availability data and predicted future service demand.
A ‘trailblazer’ group of forces, including Cumbria, Merseyside, Staffordshire and Warwickshire Police, have come together to work on the pilot programme which seeks to identify common demand, planning and data metrics to be used in the development of local, tailored workforce plans.
The thinking behind the project is that by agreeing upon a common language and methodology for strategic workforce planning, it will provide a mutually intelligible template and guide for forces, in addition to facilitating collaboration and the sharing of best practices.
A force’s approach to strategic workforce planning is one of the factors looked at by HMICFRS as part of PEEL assessments. Chief constables in England and Wales are also required to set out their strategic workforce planning priorities in annual Force Management Statements, something which will be further supported with a standardised workforce planning methodology, according to project lead, Jon Freegard, director at Skills for Justice.
““PEEL reports show that the maturity of strategic workforce planning differs from force to force and so the idea behind this project was to bring together police from England and Wales to develop a gold standard that forces can align to,” says Jon.
“We hope that this will provide a platform for improvements in strategic workforce planning processes at individual forces and support the development of shared insights and future collaboration to improve recruitment, attrition, promotion, training, retention and scheduling activity across the board.”
Janette McCormick QPM, Strategic Workforce Lead at National Police Chiefs’ Council, says: “We are proud to partner with Skills for Justice, drawing on their expertise in strategic workforce planning.”
“This collaboration will provide forces with the best practice tools and resources to support improvements in their strategic workforce planning, providing a platform to better anticipate staffing requirements and service demand in the future.”
The strategic partnership between NPCC and Skills for Justice comes as staffing disparities continue to impact forces across England and Wales. Latest Home Office data shows a 0.9% decrease in the total policing workforce in the year to 30 September 2025.
To find out more about the NPCC’s strategic partnership with Skills for Justice visit: skillsforjustice.org.uk/national-strategic-workforce-planning-with-skills-for-justice
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