ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the various recruitment strategies that have been introduced to solve the problem of senior command. It describes three, quite different, models that were proposed during the 1930s to produce senior officers from the police ranks, before charting the development of the successful scheme, the Metropolitan Police College, and evaluating its long term legacy. These models are: open competition; the Dixon plan; and The Trenchard, or Hendon, scheme. Trenchard’s proposals quickly passed through Parliament to become the Metropolitan Police Bill 1933. The recruits to the Metropolitan Police College were quite different from the ordinary recruits of the Metropolitan Police. The chapter focuses on the discussion over the Post War re-construction of the police service and the various plans for taking forward the idea of higher police training. It draws on the advanced promotion schemes provided at Bramshill and looks at debates over its role in the police service.
