Topic seems to have degenerated a little into troll bashing, so to get things back on track....
It seems that whilst it is POSSIBLE to civilianise the Police Air Observer role, most Units don't, generally because they believe the role should be carried out by a Police Officer.
Looking at Selection Procedures though - in general, how do you select the "right person" ( whether Police or Civillian - but particularly Civillian ) for the job ?
Selection can be a very expensive process, and if someone is selected that subsequently fails the course, doesn't fit in, decides to leave etc, then that could well be money wasted.
It is easy enough to conduct a series of tests aimed at examining such things as Spatial Awareness, Multi-Tasking, Hand-eye co-ordination, Mental Agility, Attention to Detail, Physical Fitness etc, with the addition of written knowledge tests, flight tests and so on, which will all examine the key skills needed to to do the job, but how do you determine someone's CHARACTER and ATTITUDE which are both just as important ?
( Consider one of the recent posters to this topic as an example
)
We've all probably seen examples of those with glowing CV's written by their supervisors who merely want to get rid of them, so how do you actually weed out the applicants that would not fit in with the small "crew" environment ?
You know - the ones that would get your back up after working with them for just a few hours
, who have difficulty accepting their errors and weaknesses to the extent that issues cannot be resolved, and who would not fully embrace the world of CRM
??
Do any Air Support Units conduct any sort of psychometric testing, or character trait examination prior to being offered the job, other than "asking around" to see if anyone knows them, and can give an honest opinion about them ?
Are such tests actually available to the Police for this purpose ?
I know of at least one such applicant that passed all of his written and practical tests with flying colours, but was the last person any of the existing staff would have wanted to work with.
Fortunately he failed his final interview !
