3 News can reveal that from tomorrow police will enforce stricter fitness rules for frontline staff after a study found their physical test needed an overhaul.
Those who don't pass will be consigned to backroom duties and miss out on an $800 incentive bonus.
“There has been a casual attitude in small parts to this, this will be requiring those staff to meet the requirements,” says Deputy Commissioner Mike Bush.
“If they don't [pass] we will continue to help manage them to get to that level.”
That level is changing, after an Otago University study in 2011 found the police physical competency test, or PCT, needed work.
The study named a greater strength focus for restraining criminals, and updated time standards for the course as areas that needed improvement.
The course is still a work-in-progress but for now police must do a 400m test comprising:
- a 10m trailer push;
- a 10m wheel carry;
- a 200m dash;
- a 5m beam walk;
- a 1.8m long jump;
- 30m of cones and hurdles;
- climbing through a window, over a wall;
- dragging a body 7.5m;
- climbing a 2.2m wire fence.
Police 3 News spoke to agreed the test is well outdated, with some even saying the only reason they bothered to do it was for the $800 cash bonus. That's an allowance paid to those who pass the test, required every two years.
Police were well-warned tomorrow would be D-day and most have listened, with just 361 of the 7631 frontline staff not having a current PCT.
3 News