This new premium episode properly kicks of Season 5 of my popular Police Promotion and Leadership podcast. It’s one you certainly won’t want to miss, because it’s all about a particularly topical subject now for police leadership, legitimacy and public confidence: INTEGRITY.
Here’s a quick sample of the intro before I summarise some issues in the rest of this blog. If you like what you hear, subscribe here to listen to the other 70 minutes! It’s worth the £4.99 subscription fee alone, and follows on nicely from my police culture trilogy…
“The police are the anvil on which society beats out the problems and abrasions of social inequality, racial prejudice, weak laws and ineffective legislation.” – Sir Robert Mark
Emergence of Police ‘Integrity Health Checks’
Have you heard? In recent years, police forces have been doing something called Integrity Health Checks. They’re an annual check in with individuals and are a required action deriving from recent inspections by HMICFRS. Here’s how HMIC define them:
Integrity Health Check: A meeting between a supervisor and a member of the workforce to establish whether anything in the member of staff’s circumstances might pose a corruption risk.
Given the enhanced scrutiny going on around integrity in policing currently, being merely aware isn’t going to cut it. You need to be proactive with wider reading, incorporating such developments into your CPD as a leader.
In this premium podcast, I also summarise for you HMICFRS’s report in relation to vetting, misconduct, and misogyny in the police service. While published two years ago, this inspection remains just as relevant (and ongoing) today.
At the very least its damning findings are driving a lot of the activity you’re seeing take place around you. For example the brand new (and controversial) vetting procedures published by the College of Policing, or indeed these ‘health checks’ forces are (sometimes notionally) conducting.
You might also notice HMIC publishing bespoke ‘integrity arrangements’ via thematic inspection reports, such as this recent example for North Yorkshire. You can be sure that when Chief Officers are experiencing inspections focused specifically around scrutinising their force’s integrity arrangements, this will almost certainly feature in promotion selection processes, e.g. presentation scenarios. Especially for any areas raised for concern or improvement.
Relating Integrity Back to Your Leadership
How do you demonstrate integrity in the workplace? What does integrity mean to you? As a newly promoted leader, what will your approach be to supporting your teams around integrity issues? What will you do guard against corruption issues? How will you create an open and safe environment for your teams where individuals are confident to speak up? This podcast episode and covering blog aim to support, challenge and respectfully provoke your thinking around these issues.
You’ll find great value in this discussion as I draw the points together for you as an aspiring leader and point out how you can use this essential CPD and awareness to get ahead of the curve for 2025. Expect promotion board questions on this subject, however it gets phrased (secure my Interview Success guide for a bank of practice ones). It’s especially important not just if you’re supervising a team, but to the more strategic ranks of Inspector and Chief Inspector.
For further information, here’s some quick fire questions South Wales Police PSD have put together on their health check to inform line manager discussions with staff and officers. What are your thoughts on this? Do you find such prompts helpful, or is it teaching people to suck eggs?
What is the leadership you need to provide to ensure integrity can thrive? Thinking through these kind of questions now will help you become a better leader. As a result, this massively boosts your odds of success in any upcoming promotion board.
Final Thoughts on Police Integrity…
To finish with a freebie, here’s a snippet of free content summarising for you the CVF value of integrity. And yes the CVF is about to change, but ‘there’s nothing new under the sun’ and be assured I’ll keep all my premium toolkits and CVF explainers updated for you!
One final thought: Has much changed in relation to integrity in the 25 years since HMIC’s 1999 report on ‘Police Integrity: Securing and Maintaining Public Confidence’?
I hope you enjoy the episode and the bespoke insights and guidance for you to consider, listen to and reflect upon for inclusion in your personal approach to your promotion opportunity. Please subscribe to access my treasure trove of premium podcast content to support your promotion ambitions and longer-term leadership CPD more generally.
If you’re serious about success or have an upcoming board and want the best possible structured support in the shortest time, then check out my rank-specific toolkits. They cover all the angles you need to prepare, including relating topics like this to the leadership behaviours expected of you. There’s even example evidence showing how you can put your experience into practice.
Kind regards, Steve
Seeking police promotion? Want a MASSIVE head start right now? Hit the ground running with your personal digital promotion toolkit, and/or my market-leading Police Promotion Masterclass. There’s nothing else like it to effectively prepare you for success in your leadership aspirations. You can also contact me to arrange more personal coaching support. Or try my podcast for your ongoing police leadership CPD covering a range of fascinating subjects.
