The potential to become a good police officer: Development of a competency framework for the Norwegian Police University College

Abstract

The Norwegian Police University College (PHS) needed a common terminology for the evaluation process of appli-cants’ “required aptness”. This created an opportunity to explore the requirements for the role of student and futurepolice officer through a job analysis.This article describes the process and results of the job analysis conducted in 2011at PHS. The purpose of the analysis was to create a shared understanding of the concept ofrequired aptness. A set of sixcompetency areas was derived: Interaction,Openness and Inclusion,Integrity, Analytical capacity,Resolve, andMaturity,comprising 13 core competencies. Involving 100 central stakeholders in the organisation and reading of a wide arrayof central strategic police documents helped create the competency framework, using the analysis of methodologicaltriangulation. The aim of the competency framework was to equip the admission committees with the necessary toolsto identify apt applicants and helped them formulate a viable, fair and consistent opinion of an applicant’s potential.This paper includes a discussion of the competency framework in terms of the six competency areas’ practical use, costand benefit as well as their possible further usability. They have been in use since autumn 2019 to evaluate studentsthroughout their year of field training.