The Scottish Police Authority needed to build a strong leadership team for Police Scotland to deliver a significant transformational agenda. They were looking for candidates who not only had the operational policing experience, but also the leadership capability to drive a challenging journey of accelerated growth, intense scrutiny and accountability. Our robust, tailored assessment process enabled them to find exactly the right people for the job.
SOLUTION HIGHLIGHTS
- ROBUST, TWO-STAGE PROCESS
- INDIVIDUAL ASSESSMENT CENTRES
- BESPOKE, DETAILED CANDIDATE REPORTS
- SUCCESSFULLY APPOINTED LEADERS
SCOPE AND SCALE
The Scottish Police Authority (SPA) were faced with the challenge of hiring an elite group of leaders into the roles of Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) and Deputy Chief Constable (DCC) for Police Scotland to deliver the 2026 strategy.
SITUATION
Police Scotland had undergone a wave of change, instability and uncertainty, and they needed a strong leadership team to work collectively and deliver a significant transformational agenda. The SPA needed to identify the ‘right’ individuals. Not only did they need to have technical/operational Policing experience, but also the leadership experience and capability to lead on this challenging journey of accelerated growth, intense scrutiny and accountability. And they needed a strategic assessment partner to help them do it.
SOLUTION
A ROBUST PROCESS
The SPA engaged our Assessment expertise to design and deliver a robust process to recruit a number of DCCs and ACCs into Police Scotland. We measured each candidate’s strengths
and potential areas of development against indicators from the College of Policing Competency and Values Framework.
A TWO-STAGED APPROACH
In Stage One, candidates completed an online critical reasoning test and a series of personality assessments, followed by an in-depth validation interview with a highly experienced Business Psychologist. At Stage Two, all candidates were invited to attend an individual assessment centre. They were tested by a team of independent, highly experienced assessors across four exercises.
BESPOKE REPORTS
Our assessors collated all the candidate performance information and developed detailed reports on each individual. These also included a series of specific questions that the panel
could use in the final stage interview to dig deeper and give candidates a final opportunity to demonstrate their experience or capability in a specific competency.
RESULTS
SUCCESSFULLY APPOINTED LEADERS
This robust approach enabled the SPA to successfully appoint three individuals into the ACC roles and two individuals into the DCC roles, as key players in the Police Scotland leadership team.
CONFIDENCE IN THE FUTURE
Our tailored, best practice-based assessment process gave the SPA confidence that the selected individuals would make a significant contribution to the development of policing in Scotland in the years ahead.
