Responsibility for the physical fitness of serving police officers, police community support officers and special constables is the responsibility of the chief officer of each force.
All serving police officers passed the endurance (‘bleep’) test and the dynamic strength (‘push and pull’) tests, as police applicants who fail cannot be appointed police officers.
The most recent figures available are for the 2005-06 period and are shown in the following table:
Fail Pass Endurance 263 7,512 Pull 263 9,529 Push 226 7,478 Note: The table provides the figures for 38 forces and does not include data for the forces listed as follows as this has not been made available to the Department. Cheshire Cleveland Devon and Cornwall Dorset, Gloucestershire Merseyside and West Midlands
A working group of the Police Advisory Board for England and Wales (PAB EW) was recently set up to look at developing national fitness standards for specialist police roles such as firearms officers and dog handlers. This will lead to regular national testing for officers in these roles.
Following the completion of this work on standards and testing for specialist roles, the PAB EW working group will consider regular testing for patrol officers.
The health and safety of police officers, including their physical fitness, is currently the responsibility of the chief officer of each force. Therefore, the development and implementation of initiatives relating to the physical fitness of serving police officers is also a force responsibility. The Police Advisory Board of England and Wales, which advises Ministers and has formal representation from the staff associations, is considering these issues and will in due course provide advice to Ministers.