Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to include the training of police officers within the Police Knowledge Fund.

The £10 million Police Knowledge Fund is intended to incentivise collaborations between police forces and academic institutions to help establish and drive a sustainable and recognised body of knowledge, evidence and expertise on policing and cutting crime. Professionalising the police is a cornerstone of the Government’s policing reforms and the College of Policing expects the Knowledge Fund to help embed evidence-based problem solving approaches within forces and build sustained capability amongst officers and staff to understand and use research.

Bids will be submitted jointly by police forces and academic institutions against a set of criteria agreed with the College of Policing and the Higher Education Funding Council for England. We are expecting a wide range of collaborative bids that cover many aspects of policing activity.