Police to face a new fitness test (From Southend Standard)

Police to face a new fitness test

8:00am Wednesday 8th August 2012 in News

COPS who prefer doughnuts to diets will be put through their paces next year with the introduction of annual fitness tests.

All officers will have to pass – not just the bobbies on the beat.

Repeated failures will result in disciplinary action, although portly police officers will be given support rather than the sack.

At the moment, police officers take a fitness test before joining the force, but can then go 30 years without another one.

New recruits will be subject to more rigorous tests once the changes are made, expected in September 2013.

Roy Scanes, principal officer for the Essex Police Federation, said: “The federation is not against fitness tests.

“Officers in frontline roles need to be fit and able to do the job, but the tests have to be proportionate to the roles.”

The tests are part of a set of police reform proposals in the Winsor report.

It found in the Metropolitan Police more than 50 per cent of male officers were overweight and 20 per cent were obese, while a third of women were overweight and 16 per cent obese.