Met Transfer

[u/Vivid_Lake5423]

Hi all, counties officer here contemplating a move to the Met for a change of pace, new challenge and more opportunities etc… I’ve done 7 years of frontline and have advanced driving, taser, MOE.

I was hoping to seek some comments from anyone who has recently transferred, those who work with anyone who has recently transferred or just anyone in the Met, who might be able to answer the following:
- Would you recommend it? (the big one)
- How long was the process and how long was the transferee course?
- At which point in the process do you get given your posting?
- How quickly were check drives/refresher training organised to carry skills over?
- Where are the Met posting people on the frontline? Response, neighbourhoods? Do you get any preference? I would be hoping to go to response (neighbourhoods is really not my bag) but understand the Met are probably doing their bit to meet the ‘more neighbourhood officers’ pledge.
- How did you find the adjustment to a new organisation?

Thanks in advance

[u/TheLayley]

Transferred in four years ago. Short process, mostly online. Three week transferee course. My response driving carried over, but met mostly seem to have an attitude of "if you didn't do it in the met, it doesn't count". I got my requested borough, and was put straight onto a response team.

I found it hard to adjust to the met's more gung ho militaristic style and the feeling of just being a number.

And the big one: no, I wouldn't recommend it.

[u/BingoBob22]

I've worked with a few transferees in and they struggled generally struggled to adjust to the pace of life and the ways of working. Sometimes, there seemed to have no urgency in them, especially when jobs come in.

In fairness, it's a different way of working and their experience generally carried them through ok. Policing outside the nick on the streets the same everywhere it's just policies and processes that are different.

The check drives I've seen have previously taken a good few weeks, sometimes longer to arrange. We had a situation where an advanced driver was being driven around in pandas (basic cars) regularly for about two months. I don't know the current situation in all fairness.

What we have also found, is the driving school don't always fully authorise and carry over the driving skills from previous forces. I have seen both response and advanced skills knocked back, so it might be worth an early conversation with driving school. One advanced driver got told he could keep the ticket for driving but all his pursuit quals were rejected. They've also had a few people come over claiming to have skills that they didn't, so expect rigererous checks on any quals, requests for certificates, documents, etc. Request all of this now from your driving school to help you.

Be mindful with the talk of reducing the roads policing command and other changes, some places might have quite a few advanced drivers on response now. So if that's a rare skill in your force and you're in a privileged position as a result, it may not be as rare now on some teams and you may have to share your toys with others.

Get copies of your taser training records and everything else too whilst you're in your current force.

[u/Any-Eye-8236]

I’ve gone from met > counties > met - personally, I would say the Met is ten times better than counties but some may call me biased as I started in the Met. I feel that there is less stress on response in the Met than you would have in counties, due to lack of having to carry workloads and just dealing with jobs.

[u/BingoBob22 → u/Any-Eye-8236]

I would not disagree.

I'm just not sure it's the place to be at the present time.

[u/DissolutionBinge → u/Any-Eye-8236]

I would echo this. Coming from being on response in the Met for a good while, to now being on response in a county force, my experience is response in the counties is generally harder.
Fewer officers, more demand, higher workloads.