The Metropolitan Police has recruited 100 new staff from some of London’s
most deprived communities through a new partnership scheme.
The alliance between the Met, Jobcentre Plus and the London Employer
Coalition was designed to deal with unemployment in inner city areas and fill
positions within the service.
A total of 36 people have now started work as communications officers, with
a further 23 awaiting clearance to take up their positions. Another 42 are
working in traffic police or community support roles, with dozens more ready to
take up posts.
The three organisations devised a specialist work preparation programme and
guaranteed an interview to all candidates that completed it.
This means people applying do not need specific qualifications – making the
jobs open to a wider audience and hopefully easier to fill.
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Andrew Smith said the partnership
was an excellent example to other police forces and public sector employers of
how to fill important vacancies and recruit people from areas of high
unemployment.
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Commissioner Sir John Stevens, head of the Met, expects more candidates to
come through the scheme. "We have set ourselves extremely ambitious
recruitment targets this year and partnerships such as this are an excellent
way of matching the right people with the right skills to the right job."
The courses have so far been run in Lambeth, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Brent
and Haringey with 80 per cent of those interviewed getting a job.
