Police are spending more than £6,300 sending officers on stress-management courses, it was revealed today. Eighty-two staff have signed up for the £77-per-head programme, new figures show.
It is one of a number of more than 200 packages on offer by West Midlands Police.
They include training in assertiveness, for which 104 people are set to take part at a cost of £76-per-head, and “working at heights and ladder safety”. Twenty five people wanted to go on that course, which was said to have cost nothing.
Caroline Schubert, from the West Midlands Police Authority, which revealed the figures in a new report, said staff underwent a personal development review every year, which identified workers who should be sent on courses.
The stress course was one of the cheaper courses offered by the force, which has some 13,000 staff and a budget of around £500 million.
A general dog training course cost £5,200-per-head, and 25 people took part.
Writing in the report, Chief Constable Sir Paul Scott Lee said: “To ensure that the force is able to deliver an adequate and effective police service, the force reviews the skills mix it needs and then ensures this is met.”
Pc Paul Tonks, chairman of the West Midlands Police Federation, said: “There’s stress in every job, it’s an issue that everybody has to deal with.”
Yesterday, the force said a hypnotherapy scheme to help workers quit smoking had proved a success.
5 Comments
Any excuse not to get out and patrol the streets which we pay them to do, as for ladders I thought we have a perfectly adequate Fire and Rescue service for this work.
Whats wrong with the Police providing their staff with course to keep both the mind and body safe… Most people don’t come anywhere near the stress the Police do… Give them a break..
Maybe if the employed qualified police they wouldn’t need stress courses. One what connection the company offering the course has to the Government?
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need stress courses.
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Give them a break, they do a hard job, made harder by political interference. Better to teach them to deal with stress now than pay them to be off for 12 months with depression later. Thye do a great job given the increasing demands out on them caused by parents unable to bring their feral brats under control.