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PCDA/PCEP Merseyside Police March 2025 Intake

I applied for this role last year and now I’ve currently passed my medical, vetting, and fitness tests. I did my biometrics two weeks ago and haven’t heard anything since then but the course starts on the 10th March which means I need to hand my notice in at my current job in almost 2 weeks time. On my profile on the police website it says the stage is at “Quality Assurance before Offer.” Is this a good thing? Should I be panicking and email them or do I just hope they send me something in the next 2 weeks? I really want this job. Thanks

Reply 1

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by Dunny2k

Do you have an offer, or have you just been informed of the start date? Police HR are normally ok about this kind of thing and will normally say whether or not you should give notice to your current job. It is highly unlikely that you will be given a proper offer with less than 4 weeks notice.

"QA before offer" could mean a lot of things and in this day and age it probably means that they are checking that they are matching up candidates with training places and making sure they have enough money to train and take everyone on as well as making sure they have the right university resources in place for the people doing PCDA.

However, if it is worrying you, there is no harm in calling / emailing and no harm in doing that every couple of days. No one will hold it against you.

Reply 2

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by Dunny2k

I have a conditional offer, subject to pre-employment checks which I’ve passed so now just waiting for the official offer. I was informed of the start date a few months ago before vetting took place. So the offer should come before I’m meant to hand my 4 week notice in? Ahh right, I see. That makes sense, I’m just stressing because if I haven’t got my offer in the next 2 weeks then I won’t be able to serve my notice period!
Yeah I’ll email them over the weekend and just see where they’re up to and what’s going on! Many thanks for your help!

Whatever you do, don't quit before you have an offer because anything could happen - especially in the current climate. WIth funding the way it is, a class intake could be cancelled and you'd be left nowhere.

Absolute worst case scenario, quit with less notice. You might feel bad about it, but it's not the end of the world. Unless you're in a super sensitive job they probably won't care too much and its not like you're going to need a reference. Ultimately if you had to give 4 weeks and you give them 3, who really cares. Contracts of employment cannot be enforced in the sense that you can be forced to go to work. If you are in a high profile or commercially sensitive role, you could be put on gardening leave, but this is very unlikely and the cost of them trying to enforce it would be quite high. This would also only be an issue if they're acting to protect some kind of commercial interest. So if you were a salesperson moving to a competitor for example. As you are almost certainly not doing that it's unlikely that your employer will be that fussed.

Also - how do you know that your notice period is a month? Does it say that on your contract, or is it just what they have told you? If you look at your contract and it doesn't say that - then it doesn't always apply and they can't automatically imply terms in or incorporate terms without some kind of employed handbook or policy. If they haven't given you a written contract then this isn't going to be something that they will argue the toss over.

One thing to note - if you do leave with less notice, your old work could withold some or all of your final pay and you'd be in a sticky situation trying to get it out of them if they want to fight about it. So in an ideal world, if it comes down to the wire and you are about to be paid - then make sure you get paid and then quit.

Ultimately, if you leave with less notice you are breaching your contract - your employer might not care that much, or if you have a reasonable relationship they might be quite happy to just let it go.

Reply 3

cocokate123

did you get an update as my daughters in same boat? due to start 10 march too

Reply 4

username7493451

Original post

by cocokate123

did you get an update as my daughters in same boat? due to start 10 march too

Hi, I got my offer yesterday :smile:

Reply 5

cocokate123

oh brilliant - was it email or post as my daughter hadn’t heard. she had biometrics on 8th and her offer still says ‘quality assurance before offer’

but she doesn’t have a notice period so hopefully ok

(edited 11 months ago)

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PCDA/PCEP Merseyside Police March 2025 Intake

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