CVF 2024 Decoder Matrix

What Panels Are Actually Listening For

July 2026
CVF 2024 aligned.
Not affiliated with the College of Policing.

How to use this sheet

The official College of Policing framework is 24 pages of corporate language. This sheet translates it into operational reality. Use it beside you when you build your STARR examples. For each answer, check the Common Trap column first: that is where most candidates lose marks without realising it. In the Met? Its promotion interview is no longer scored against the CVF, see state6.co.uk/met-police-promotion.

The 2024 Values Shift

The CVF was updated in May 2024. If your examples reference the old 2016 values, the panel notices immediately.

Use these: 2024

Courage
Respect and Empathy
Public Service

Drop these: 2016

Integrity
Impartiality
Transparency

The Competency Matrix

Competency	What it actually means	The common trap	What actually scores
We Are Emotionally Aware	Managing your own emotional responses and adapting your leadership style when dealing with difficult people or complex situations.	Describing a time you were simply nice or empathetic to a victim. That is basic policing, not leadership.	Admitting a genuine assumption or blind spot you held, and showing how you changed your approach in real time because of it.
We Take Ownership	Stepping into the gap when nobody else will. Holding yourself and others accountable for the final outcome, not just the process.	Describing a standard job where you followed an SOP or did what you were told. Compliance is not ownership.	Showing how you gripped a failing situation, made a hard call under pressure, and stood by it when questioned.
We Collaborate	Breaking down silos to reach a result your immediate team could not have achieved on its own.	Listing people you had a meeting with or copied into an email. Passing information is not collaboration.	Identifying a blockage with a partner agency or another function, negotiating a shared solution, and delivering a joint outcome.
We Support and Inspire	Getting the best out of your people by understanding what drives them individually. Building capability, not just giving orders.	Sending a struggling officer to occupational health and leaving it at that. Process compliance is not leadership.	Noticing a subtle drop in performance, uncovering the root cause through a direct conversation, and adapting how you lead because of what you found.
We Analyse Critically	Making sense of messy or incomplete information to reach a safe, justifiable decision under pressure.	Gathering lots of data but never explaining how that data changed your plan. Description is not analysis.	Naming the framework you used to weigh competing priorities, the NDM, a risk matrix or an intelligence gap, and showing how the decision changed when you applied it.
We Are Innovative and Open-Minded	Finding a better way to do things when the standard approach stops working or wastes resources.	Creating a new spreadsheet for a minor admin task that did not need one. Small optimisations are not innovation.	Challenging a longstanding force practice with hard evidence and successfully implementing a more efficient alternative, even where there was resistance.

The Three Values, Decoded

Courage

The trap: retelling a dangerous incident. Physical bravery is assumed in this job. The value tests whether you challenge poor behaviour, push back up the chain and hold an unpopular line when it costs you.

Respect and Empathy

The trap: treating it as customer service to the public. Panels also listen for how you treat your own people, especially the officer you find difficult or the view you disagree with.

Public Service

The trap: vocation waffle. Evidence it with a real decision that put the public's interest above your team's convenience or a performance figure, and say what it cost.

The Rank Calibration Check

A strong Sergeant answer will not pass at an Inspector board. Before you finalise any example, run it through this check.

Constable → Sergeant

Are you leading the constables, or just doing the job yourself? Every example must show you directing, developing, or holding others accountable. If you are the hero of every story with everyone else invisible, reframe it.

Sergeant → Inspector

Are you leading the Sergeants, or micromanaging their teams? Show how you set the conditions for success across an entire shift and managed risk one step removed from the frontline.

Inspector → Chief Inspector

Are you influencing across the organisation, or stuck inside your own department? Show how your decisions shape culture across functions, reach partner agencies, and align with your force's HMICFRS picture.

Ready to test your answers? State6 scores them the way your board marks, at your rank. Try it free: 1 AI Board Review, 10 practice questions, 15 coaching rounds and 1 spoken mock board question. No card needed.state6.co.uk