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Met Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship (PCDA)

Hi,

I've recently been accepted onto the Met PCDA (subject to vetting checks) but just wanted to find out more about what the apprenticeship is like, how heavy the workload is and what the degree is like.

Would also be nice to hear from anyone else accepted onto the program!

Thanks :smile:

Reply 1

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Hi @millycampbell01,

I did not personally do the PCDA - it didn't exist when I became a police officer, and at this point I'm more on the supervision of new officers role.

Its very difficult to get solid opinions on these things from people who have actually done it as by default, you only ever do one entry route, so you don't actually know how another one would have gone.

My experience of seeing people who have done it though is as follows:

If you want to have a degree and don't want to go to university to get it, then its a no brainer.

If you want to be a police officer, there are other options.

The PCDA is a lot of work at a time when you will have lots of other work to do. The most important thing is to be able to compartmentalise and be robust and transparent in your work and your attitude toward it. It is going to help if your supervisors are on-side, but by the time you get to borough, I cannot imagine that there will be any sergeants out there who haven't dealt with PCDA probationers before.

The key issue is that from the moment you go to borough as an operational officer, you will start to pick up work - if you are on ERPT (response team) this will mean crimes, and if you are anywhere on the Neighbourhoods or Local Investigations strands, this can also mean casefiles. It is the responsiblity of the Officer-in-Case (that's you) to progress the crime reports and casefiles - and this *must* be done. This means contacting victims and witnesses (and suspects if named), sending exhibits to the relevant places, getting forensics done, obtaining CCTV, having CCTV processed - OR - sending these things to the relevant people to get it done. A lot of the time you will be trying to get someone else to take the crime / case off your hands as they are better placed to do it - or you will be trying to do enough to get the crime report closed because there isn't really any prospect of progressing it.

The problem is that this all takes a lot of time - and that's time you generally don't have. If you're on ERPT you'll often be flying around in a fast car from place to place sorting out problems and generating even more new work. You can also get tied up with crime scenes, prisoners, hospital guard and so on and so on. If things carry on the way they're going, you might also spend a fair bit of time in Central London on public order.

So add to this - at some point you will have your University work to do. There is what is called Protected Learning time, when you go back to university and are not with your borough team. This is sometimes a welcome break, but some officers find it frustrating that they are already operational and are being abstracted away from work to essentially go to criminology lectures and write essays. Make sure you use your learning time for uni work and not for your normal police work , that is such a rookie error. Also, you have to be strong and make it clear to your supervisors and team that you are off on Protected Learning and you will not be handling your crimes or cases - you won't even be logging in. I don't know what the current situation is with email, but I don't think you are supposed to be answering work emails either - although it might be unavoidable depending on how the university work is administered. Make sure at all costs that your crime reports and casefiles are up to date before you go off, and that you have inserted notes on all of them that you are off on protected learning and they will not be updated while you are away. Be 100% sure that you put an auto-reply on your email that you are abstracted and will not be replying to email. If the cases are important, then make sure to ask that someone will be handling them while you are away (not that this will happen).

The above is just a reality of life, and is possibly one of the key things that causes trouble for new officers, especially detectives. The other side of things is that yes, one day you might be arresting someone for an assault or a burglary and the next day you're at university doing something completely different. You will definietly find that when you go back to uni, people find it hard to switch off from the excitement and just don't want to be there. But this is a role and route you chose, so my advice would be to use the time wisely and get used to turning it on and off, and only doing the thing you should be doing.

In terms of the practicalities of police work, it really makes no difference what route you come in by, and your colleagues won't really care either. Once you're in uniform, you're a number on the postings sheet and you get posted no different to anyone else.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.