CSFS CEO Blog – Society Competency assessments adapt to forces’ needs

The Chartered Society has recently been working with one of the largest Police forces to update our Competency Assessments for CSIs, to incorporate elements of Major Crime.

“Assessments have always been based on Volume crime, where we have set up a scenario of a residential or commercial premises’ burglary” explained Vanessa Swales from the CSFS Competence team. “However, we are aware of the pressure on forces to also assess CSIs on Major crime scenes and we have adapted to this. Working with the force and with our assessors, who all have extensive knowledge and experience in crime scene examination, we have introduced elements that would only be found in Major crime scenes. We then assess this as an independent body, against the SOPS for that process and give the candidate and the force feedback on what needs improvement and where they excel!”

Darrell Matthews, CEO added “This is a key change in how we assess as an independent body. My thanks to the team and the force for working together – this shows that we can adapt our programme in light of changes coming from Regulation and Accreditation. The force has really appreciated this flexible approach and it shows that forces can save resource when compared to in-house assessments”.

Any force that would like to discuss how the Society can assist in competency assessments can contact us on vanessa.swales@csofs.org