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Training, accreditation and deployment

Authorised Professional Practice

This page is from APP, the official source of professional practice for policing.

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Police dogs
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Training standards

All police dogs must be trained in accordance with the National Canine Training Accreditation Scheme (NCTAS).

The NCTAS provides:

  • a framework for continuing professional development
  • consistency and standardisation across the range of disciplines and training activities
  • standardised national procedures and terminology for police use of police dogs and related activities
  • a vehicle for sharing and promoting good practice in response to lessons learned

Access to the NCTAS is restricted to authorised members of the police service via Knowledge Hub (login required).

Managing risk in training

Chief constables have a legal obligation to ensure the health, safety and welfare at work of their employees, under:

Chief constables must ensure that all employees are appropriately trained in H&S legislation. They are also responsible for ensuring that appropriate and necessary risk assessments are in place.

Risk assessments should ensure that any unacceptable risk is eliminated or mitigated. Where residual risk remains, the instructor delivering training must carry out a dynamic risk assessment to ensure that the benefit derived from the training is proportionate to the risk.

There are three risk assessments that are relevant to the delivery of police dog training. Chief constables must ensure that the relevant departments complete and maintain these risk assessments under The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. 

Training risk assessment 

Chief constables must create, maintain and review a training risk assessment to ensure the effective and safe delivery of police dog training. This should include guidance on:

  • the training venue
  • training equipment
  • trainer staffing levels
  • student-to-trainer ratios
  • injury reporting protocols
  • near-miss reporting protocols
  • accessing welfare facilities

The risk assessment applies to all training events and venues where physical delivery of police dog training is taking place by instructors and trainers.

Venue-specific risk assessments

Where forces have one or more training venues, a separate risk assessment is needed for each venue.

Role-specific risk assessments

Chief constables must ensure that the relevant H&S representatives create and maintain risk assessments for specific roles in relation to their operational duty.

Deployment

All deployments of police dogs must comply with the NPCC Police Dog Standard. Chief constables should ensure that they have a robust, open and transparent recording, reporting and review process for all police dog bites.

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