De-escalation training

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.22.026554

I note you seek access to the following information:

1. Please could you tell me how often your police officers attend de-escalation training and
2. How often this training is offered and reviewed; for example do your officers receive de-escalation training during initial police training and then on an annual basis.
3. I would also like to know, if possible, how many of your officers haven't received any de-escalation training in the past 12 months, including senior officers.

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the located information to you in full.

Please find below information pursuant to your request above.

‘De-escalation’ forms a large part of the wider subject of ‘tactical communication’, a lesson that is taught in the early stages of Public & Personal Safety Training (PPST) foundation courses. All police officers and all police staff in frontline roles are required to complete PPST.

Recruit Foundation Training:
All police officer recruits are required to complete 8 days of PPST. Tactical communication sits at the start of Day 2 of 8, although it will already have been signposted on Day 1 during a National Decision Model lesson. There is a follow up lesson on ‘Effects of stress & De-escalation’ on Day 8. This links to further scenario based training whereby recruit police officers are tested in a simulated environment – dealing with conflict situations.

Refresher Training:
We require all eligible police officers to attend PPST Refresher Training every 6 months. We require all eligible frontline police staff to attend PPST Refresher Training every 18 months. There is a mandatory digital learning asset in relation to de-escalation. In addition, the following lessons have included specific exercises where officers use ‘tactical communication’/’de-escalation’ to resolve a situation before moving in to physical skills for those occasions where this is unsuccessful:
• October 2020 to March 2021 – ‘Disengage to control assessment’
• April to September 2021 – ‘Linked assessment scenarios’.
• April to September 2022 – ‘Grapple control’

Senior Officer Training:
This course was recently introduced with a mandated annual attendance for all operational senior leaders who work on the frontline in public-facing roles. Structured training contains learning outcomes to demonstrate the link between communication and restraint skills, including de-escalation.

All police officers who are up to date with their training will have attended PPST that contains some form of ‘tactical communication’ aimed at ‘de-escalation’ within the lesson plans over the last 12 month review period.

All officers, unless injured or restricted from duty, have undergone this training.