It’s been a busy week of training across the RGP.

In the last week of their initial training, RGP recruits spent two days on the Buffadero training area where they learned the principles and techniques of crowd control. Following the syllabus laid down by the UK College of Policing, they were provided with the necessary skills and knowledge to equip them to act effectively if ever they were called upon during a time of public disorder.

Meanwhile other, slightly rather more senior officers were being updated on the latest regulations concerning the operation of New Mole House’s Custody Suite. This refresher training, led by Inspector John Lutkin and Rachel Tobelem of the Care Agency, has been introduced following recommendations made in the most recent report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services.

Yet more training was being conducted at Bleak House where the RGP’s Command Team was taking part in a leadership training programme provided by Rob Priddy, an ex-Police Superintendent from Gloucestershire Constabulary and a former instructor at the UK College of Policing.

In his introduction to this Leadership and Wellbeing Programme, the Commissioner of Police, Richard Ullger said, “This course has been created to support senior officers in their policing career, but also to enhance the learning that some of them will receive in the College of Policing Senior Leadership Programme and on the Strategic Command Course.

“When our Sergeants and Inspectors undertook the first cohort of leadership training, they recommended that this course should be reflected throughout the full hierarchy of the organisation. Their recommendations to us were invaluable and I am extremely grateful to them for their honesty and participation.”

The Commissioner ended his own presentation to the Command Team by saying that:

“We are always learning and each one of us has some skills and qualities that others don’t possess. I may now be the Commissioner of Police but this does not make me a better leader than you... and I need to continue to learn - as do you.”

Indeed, the Commissioner’s words are very apt when applied across the RGP: ‘I need to continue to learn – as do you.”