Worked CVF examples

Police CVF examples,worked board answers for every competency.

The Competency and Values Framework sits at the centre of every UK police promotion board. Whether you are going for sergeant, inspector or chief inspector, the panel scores your evidence against the six CVF competencies and the three values. Most candidates can recite what each one means. Far fewer can show it under pressure in a board room, and that gap is where promotions are won and lost.

This hub gives you one fully worked example for every competency and value in the framework, spread across all three ranks. For each one you get a realistic board question, then a weak answer with a plain breakdown of why it falls flat, then a strong answer built on the STARR structure (Situation, Task, Action, Result, Reflection) with an explanation of why it scores. The contrast is deliberate. The story is rarely the problem. How you tell it almost always is.

Score your own CVF answers in State6

How it is scored

Marked one to five, against your rank.

Each competency and value is scored a whole number from one to five against the descriptors in the Competency and Values Framework published by the College of Policing. The same scale runs through the State6 AI Board Review, so the feedback mirrors a real panel. As a rough guide:

1 to 2

Red. A competent process, generic learning, or the wrong rank.

Amber. The evidence is there but thin, or it slips into we.

4 to 5

Green. Specific, first person, owned, and reflected on.

Not sure what each one looks for in plain English? The CVF framework guide breaks down all six competencies and three values, and the free question bank gives you questions for every area to practise on.

The worked examples

Click a competency to read the answer.

Pick a tile and the worked answer opens below it: the board question, a weak answer and why it falls flat, then a strong STARR answer and why it scores. Competencies first, then the values. Each strong answer is a condensed teaching model, built to show you the structure and what scores rather than to be recited. A real answer in the room runs longer, around five to six minutes spoken.

Competencies

Values

Sergeant level

We Are Emotionally Aware

Whether you read emotion accurately, your own as much as other people's, and do something different because of it. The strongest examples show you noticed what others missed and started with your own assumption rather than the other person's.

Board question. Tell me about a time you recognised a colleague was struggling before they raised it themselves. What did you do, and what did you learn about yourself?

Weak answer

One of the team had transferred over from response and seemed quite quiet and a bit withdrawn. I could tell he wasn't himself, so I had a word and asked if he was okay. He said things had been tough, so I pointed him towards the wellbeing services we have and said my door was always open. He seemed a bit better after that and his work was fine. I think it showed I care about my team's wellbeing and that I'm approachable. What I took from it is that you've got to look after your people because the job takes its toll.

Why it falls flat. It reports his state and never the sergeant's own, and the signal he read, quiet and withdrawn, was obvious rather than something others had missed. Signposting to a service is the minimum, not leadership, there's nothing the sergeant actually did differently, and the reflection is a sentiment every officer already holds.

Strong answer

Situation

A PC transferred onto my neighbourhood team from response. About two weeks in I noticed small things rather than anything dramatic. He'd stopped staying for the post shift brew, his updates on the radio had gone short to the point of curt, and he'd quietly swapped out of two jobs involving young children. On paper his work was fine.

Task

My first instinct was that he wasn't settling and the curtness was attitude. As his sergeant I needed to test that read before I acted on it, because if I was wrong I'd make it worse, and I needed to understand what was going on without prying.

Action

I made myself slow down and look at what I actually knew rather than act on the irritation. The pattern, a previously proactive officer stepping back from child jobs straight after a move off response, didn't fit attitude, it fitted someone carrying something. So I didn't pull him in formally, because a desk and a closed door would have told him he was in trouble before I'd said a word. I waited for a quiet double crewed patrol and raised it side by side, and I asked how the move had landed rather than asking if he was okay, which usually just gets a yes. He brushed it off at first, so I didn't push. I just told him I'd noticed he'd been coming off certain jobs and that if there was a reason I'd far sooner know than guess. That's when he told me he'd dealt with a child death in his final month on response and hadn't spoken to anyone about it. I didn't try to counsel him, that isn't my job and I'd have got it wrong. What I did do was change things around him. I reworked the crewing so he wasn't first on to child related jobs for a fortnight, and I did it quietly so it never became something he had to explain to the team. I checked in properly twice a week rather than running it as a formal review, and I made the TRiM referral and booked occupational health myself, then chased both rather than handing him a leaflet and hoping.

Result

He went to the TRiM session, then to occupational health. Within about a month he was staying for the debrief again and picking up the full range of work himself, on his own terms. He told me later that the thing that mattered wasn't the referral, it was that someone had noticed before he'd had to say anything.

Reflection

The lesson for me was specific. I nearly managed the symptom, the curt radio manner, as a standards issue, and if I had I'd have pushed him further under. I read my team differently now. When someone's behaviour shifts, I ask what's changed before I decide what it means.

Why it scores. The sergeant catches and tests his own assumption before acting, which is where awareness is actually scored, and the signal he reads is subtle rather than obvious. He names specifically what he did differently, the reflection is about his own near miss rather than a sentiment, and the value runs through the actions instead of being claimed.

At the next rank

At inspector level this isn't one conversation, it's the climate. You'd be showing how you built a team where people raise this earlier, and how you coached your sergeants to spot it, rather than spotting it yourself.

Now write your own We Are Emotionally Aware answer and have it scored against the descriptor for Sergeant level.

Score your answer

Inspector level

We Take Ownership

Whether you take personal responsibility for outcomes in your area, including when something has gone wrong on your watch, instead of escalating it or pushing it down. The panel wants to see you own the gap before being asked, and see it through.

Board question. Tell me about a time something within your area of responsibility wasn't good enough. How did you take ownership of it?

Weak answer

A dip sample of crime reports flagged that one of my response teams was missing safeguarding referrals on domestic incidents. I raised it with the sergeant responsible and asked him to address it with his officers, and I reinforced at briefing that referrals had to be done. The numbers improved over the following weeks. I think it showed I keep an eye on standards across my teams. What I took from it is that regular quality assurance catches these things before they become a problem.

Why it falls flat. He hands the problem straight to the sergeant and reinforces a message, which isn't ownership, it's delegation with a reminder. There's no acknowledgement that the gap was his to own, no sign of what he personally drove, and falling back on quality assurance sidesteps the fact that it had already gone wrong on his watch.

Strong answer

Situation

I was the response inspector. A dip sample I ran across my teams showed that on one team, roughly a third of domestic incidents over two months had safeguarding referrals that were either late or missing, including two where children were in the house. They weren't cutting corners deliberately, the referral was just falling off the end of a busy job.

Task

The easy route was to make it the sergeant's problem and move on. But the standard on my command was mine, and I hadn't made the expectation clear or checked it, so the gap was as much mine as anyone's. I decided to own it rather than escalate it or push it down.

Action

I didn't open with blame. I sat with the sergeant and was straight that the system around his officers had let this happen, and that fixing it was on me to do with him rather than something I was dropping on his desk. Before I changed anything I read the referrals in full rather than trusting the dip sample, because I wanted to know whether this was capability or load. It was load. The thin ones clustered on the busiest officers at the busiest hours, which told me it was a process problem, not a competence one. We worked out together that the referral was being left until the officer got back to the station, by which point three more jobs had stacked up and the detail had gone cold. So we moved the point at which it happened, building it into the close of the incident on the street while the account was fresh. I put a simple check in where the sergeant reviewed every domestic referral within the shift rather than relying on a monthly sample, and I retro referred the two child cases that same day rather than let them sit. I was open with my superintendent straight away, including the two involving children, rather than waiting to present it once it was tidy, because owning it meant owning it before it was fixed, not after. I tracked it myself weekly for two months and fed each officer their own figures so the standard was visibly held.

Result

Late or missing referrals on that team went from around a third to under five per cent and held there. More than the number, the sergeant started bringing me near misses early, because he'd seen me own one rather than hunt for someone to carry it. I fed the change to the other response teams before they hit the same wall.

Reflection

What I took from it was a rule I now apply. If something's gone wrong in my area, the first question is what I set up, or failed to set up, that allowed it, before I look at anyone below me. Owning it that way is also what made people honest with me.

Why it scores. He treats a team failure as his to own rather than the sergeant's to absorb, is open upward before it's fixed rather than after, and puts a concrete measure in and sees it through. The reflection is a clear forward rule about where ownership starts, backed by a number and a shift in how his people raised problems with him.

At the next rank

At chief inspector you'd be owning a pattern across a command, redesigning a process or an accountability structure spanning several teams, rather than fixing one team's referrals and sharing the learning.

Now write your own We Take Ownership answer and have it scored against the descriptor for Inspector level.

Score your answer

Inspector level

We Collaborate

Whether you build and drive a partnership rather than attend one, understanding what each partner actually needs and negotiating something that works for all of them. Convening a meeting is not the same as collaboration.

Board question. Tell me about a partnership you built to tackle a problem your own team couldn't solve alone. What did you personally do to make it work?

Weak answer

Illegal car cruising was generating a lot of repeat calls on my area. I set up a partnership meeting with the council and we agreed that everyone would take some actions away. The council looked at signage and we did some patrols on the worst nights. Over a few months the calls came down. I think it showed I can bring partners together to tackle a shared problem. What I took from it is that you achieve far more working with partners than you do in isolation.

Why it falls flat. Convening a meeting and sharing out tasks isn't building a partnership, it's chairing one. There's no sign he understood what each partner wanted, nothing that was difficult or had to be negotiated, and the closing line could end an answer about almost anything.

Strong answer

Situation

Illegal car cruising on a retail park on my area was generating around forty calls a month, a genuine danger to the public who walked through it, and a steady stream of complaints we couldn't arrest our way out of. The meets were organised on social media and moved the moment we turned up.

Task

My own resources couldn't fix this on their own, and chasing it on a Friday night just displaced it to the next car park. The only durable answer ran through people I had no power over, so I needed to build a partnership that didn't yet exist rather than wait for one to be convened for me.

Action

I didn't start with a meeting and a list of demands. I went to see each partner first and worked out what the problem cost them in their own terms. The council cared about the antisocial behaviour figures and had a Public Spaces Protection Order power going spare. The retail park's managing agent was worried about footfall and liability, not policing. A motorsport venue twenty minutes away wanted custom on quiet weeknights. Once I understood that, I could shape something where each of them got a win they cared about rather than a favour to me. I proposed the protection order so the council got enforcement that counted for them, and I got the managing agent to fund better lighting and barriers by framing it around footfall and liability rather than crime. Rather than fight the social media side, I set up a cheap legal track night at the venue and had a youth worker and one of my PCSOs seed it through the same pages the meets were advertised on, so the alternative actually reached the drivers. When the council and the agent fell out over who paid for the barriers, I kept it moving by separating their contributions so neither felt they were carrying the other. And I did the unglamorous part myself, chairing a short fortnightly call and chasing the actions in between, because a partnership dies in the gaps between meetings rather than in them.

Result

Over the following quarter, calls from the retail park dropped from around forty a month to single figures, and they didn't simply move elsewhere, because the track night gave the genuine enthusiasts somewhere to go. The council later used the same approach on a second site. None of it would have held on enforcement alone.

Reflection

What stayed with me was that I'd gone in thinking I needed their help with my problem. The partnership only worked once I'd flipped it and made it their problem too, with something in it for each of them. That's how I come at partnership now, common interest first and my ask second.

Why it scores. He builds the partnership rather than chairing one, shows he understood each partner's separate interest and shaped a win for each, and names the moment he had to hold it together when partners fell out. The result is specific, he's honest that enforcement alone wouldn't have done it, and it reads as the strategic relationship management the inspector standard expects.

At the next rank

At chief inspector this would operate across a command and at a more senior table, anticipating the politics between agencies before it surfaces and embedding partnership as how your inspectors deliver, rather than running one partnership yourself.

Now write your own We Collaborate answer and have it scored against the descriptor for Inspector level.

Score your answer

Sergeant level

We Support and Inspire

Whether you genuinely developed someone, or held them to account in a way that changed them, rather than running a standard performance process. The panel scores what you enabled in another person, not what you did yourself.

Board question. Tell me about a time you had to address an officer whose performance was letting the team down. How did you handle it and what changed?

Weak answer

One of my constables kept letting his victim contact slip and I'd have to chase him before the twenty eight day deadline. I sat him down, went through the policy and the impact on our figures, and set him a clear expectation that updates were done on time. His compliance came up over the next few weeks. I think it showed I hold my team to account and don't let standards drift. What I took from it is the value of having the conversation early rather than letting it build up.

Why it falls flat. He frames it as a compliance and figures problem, which is exactly how the constable already saw it, so nothing shifts in the officer. There's no curiosity about why it kept happening, the development is a target rather than any growth, and the reflection is generic.

Strong answer

Situation

A capable constable on my team kept letting victim updates slip until I chased him near the twenty eight day point. He wasn't lazy, far from it. His arrest and case file work was some of the best on the team, which is exactly what made the gap stand out and what made it worth getting right rather than just enforced.

Task

The easy version was to performance manage the deadline and move on. But I wanted to understand why a genuinely good officer kept dropping this one thing, because if I just set him a target I knew I'd be back here in a month having the same conversation.

Action

I asked him about it properly rather than telling him off. It turned out he saw victim updates as an administrative box, separate from the real police work, the arrests and the files. That was the actual problem, not his diary. So I didn't lead with the policy. I picked one of his own jobs, a burglary where the victim was an elderly woman living alone, and asked him what he thought she'd been doing in the three weeks she hadn't heard anything. We talked about what the silence felt like from her side. Then I made it concrete and gave him something to own. I asked him to ring two of his victims that week with no script and just tell me what came back. One of them told him she'd assumed we'd dropped the case and had stopped sleeping properly. That landed far harder than any deadline I could have set. I was still clear the standard wasn't optional, the updates had to happen, but I tied it to the person it protected rather than to the twenty eight day clock. I checked in weekly after that, not on his compliance figure but on what his victims were telling him, and when he started getting it right I told him specifically what good had looked like rather than just noting the figure had gone green, because I wanted him to know it was the quality of the contact I'd clocked, not the box.

Result

His updates stopped being late because they'd stopped being admin to him. Three months on he volunteered to write a short input for the team tutor on keeping victims in the picture, which I hadn't asked him to do. The wider point was that I'd grown the officer, not just closed the gap.

Reflection

What I took from it was that holding someone to account and developing them aren't separate things. If I'd only enforced the standard I'd have got compliance and missed the chance to change how he saw the work. That's the difference I look for now before I reach for a target.

Why it scores. The sergeant gets under why a good officer kept failing on one thing instead of managing the symptom, and the development is a genuine shift in how the constable sees the work rather than a target met. He names what he observed and what changed in the person, and ties it to the victim, which is where the value lives.

At the next rank

At inspector level you'd be coaching your sergeant to have this conversation rather than having it yourself, and showing how you built victim focus into how the whole team works rather than fixing one officer.

Now write your own We Support and Inspire answer and have it scored against the descriptor for Sergeant level.

Score your answer

Chief Inspector level

We Analyse Critically

Whether you interrogate evidence and the assumptions behind it to reach the real cause, at a scale that affects a whole command. At chief inspector the panel wants strategic judgement and the skill of bringing people with you when the evidence is uncomfortable.

Board question. Tell me about a time your analysis led to a conclusion that challenged the accepted view. How did you reach it and how did you bring people with you?

Weak answer

Our outcomes for serious sexual offences were poor and I was determined to improve them. I reviewed the data, which showed a high rate of victims withdrawing from the process, so I commissioned additional victim support and reminded the teams of the importance of keeping victims engaged. The figures improved slightly over the following months. I think it showed I'm an evidence led leader who acts on what the data tells me. The learning was that you have to let the data guide your decisions.

Why it falls flat. At chief inspector this is far too thin. He takes the first explanation the data offers, victim withdrawal, at face value and treats the symptom. There's no interrogation of why victims withdraw, no root cause, and letting the data guide you is not the same as questioning what the data is actually telling you.

Strong answer

Situation

As the chief inspector leading safeguarding I owned our response to rape and serious sexual offences, where our positive outcome rate was sitting at around three per cent. The accepted view internally was that the investigations were under strength and the teams needed performance managing.

Task

I had to decide where to put a finite improvement effort across the command. The easy and popular move was to accept that narrative and drive the investigators harder. It didn't sit right with me, and at this level the cost of acting on the wrong cause is paid by victims, so I needed to test it properly before I committed anyone.

Action

I went back to the data with sharper questions rather than accepting the headline. I asked when in the process we were losing cases, not just how many. When we mapped attrition against time, the picture changed. We weren't mainly losing cases at charge through weak files. We were losing them in the first seventy two hours, through early evidence that was never captured and first contact that left victims feeling disbelieved, so they disengaged before an investigator ever built a file. Before I took that anywhere I tested the obvious alternative, that it really was investigator quality, by pulling cases the strongest investigators had also lost, and they were dropping out at the same early stage, which killed the performance management theory. I used the national Operation Soteria findings and our own HMICFRS feedback to pressure test it too, because I didn't want a conclusion drawn only from data my own teams had produced. The uncomfortable part was that the real problem sat upstream with first response and initial contact, not with the specialist investigators being blamed. When I took it to a senior team that had publicly backed the performance line, I didn't lead with the fact they'd got it wrong. I led with the attrition curve and let them reach the upstream conclusion themselves, because a diagnosis they arrived at would hold where one I imposed wouldn't.

Result

We shifted the effort upstream, into early evidence capture and how first responders handled the initial contact, and into specialist input on day one rather than week three. Over the following year the positive outcome rate roughly doubled off that low base, and early victim disengagement fell. More than the number, the conversation across the command stopped being about blaming investigators.

Reflection

What I took from it was that being evidence led isn't accepting the first thing the evidence appears to say. The discipline is asking what question the number is actually answering. The three per cent was real, but it was measuring the end of a problem that started long before the investigators ever got the case.

Why it scores. He refuses the convenient narrative, asks a sharper question of the same data, and separates where the problem appears from where it starts. He grounds it in national and inspection evidence, owns an uncomfortable conclusion to a senior audience and brings them with him, and the reflection lands the competency at the right altitude, where a wrong diagnosis is paid for by victims and a whole command.

At the next rank

Drop this to inspector and the panel would accept a well reasoned analysis improving one team's outcomes. A chief inspector has to show the judgement reaching across a command and a finite strategic resource, and the skill of bringing senior colleagues with you when the evidence contradicts them.

Now write your own We Analyse Critically answer and have it scored against the descriptor for Chief Inspector level.

Score your answer

Inspector level

We Are Innovative and Open Minded

Whether you challenge an established way of working, test a better approach properly including from outside policing, and stay genuinely open to being wrong. A change you forced through scores less than one you tested.

Board question. Tell me about a time you changed an established way of working. How did you build the case, and how did you stay open to it not working?

Weak answer

Our domestic abuse risk assessments were being completed back at the station hours after the event, and the quality wasn't good enough. I introduced a new way of doing them at the scene on a mobile device. Some of the more experienced officers weren't keen because they were used to the old way, but I explained the benefits and they came round. It freed up time and the forms were better. I think it showed I'm willing to challenge how things have always been done. The learning was that change is difficult but you have to push it through.

Why it falls flat. He decided the answer and pushed it through, which is the opposite of being open minded. There's no test, nothing measured, no look beyond policing for what works, and pushing it through tells the panel he'd have ignored evidence that he was wrong.

Strong answer

Situation

On my response team, the domestic abuse risk assessments were completed back at the station at the end of the job, often several hours later. I was concerned the delay was costing us detail, and worse, that we were under grading genuine risk, because the form was being filled in from memory once the adrenaline had gone and three other jobs were waiting.

Task

I thought there was a better way, doing the assessment at the scene while it was fresh, but it was a routine the team trusted and several of the experienced officers were openly sceptical. I needed to test the idea honestly rather than sell it, because I genuinely didn't know whether it would survive a busy shift.

Action

I deliberately looked outside policing first. I spent time with an emergency department charge nurse on how they triage risk at the point of contact rather than later, and borrowed the principle that the assessment belongs at the moment of contact, not the end of the process. Then I was clear with the team that I had a hypothesis, not a decision, and that if the evidence went against me I'd drop it. I asked the two most sceptical officers to help design the trial, partly to stress test it and partly because their backing would carry the others. We agreed up front what we'd measure, the quality of risk grading on supervisory review and the time from incident to completion, and we ran it for four weeks against a comparison shift. One of the sceptics raised a real objection I hadn't seen, that completing it at scene in front of a frightened victim could feel like an interrogation, so we built a judgement call in for those cases rather than pretend the problem didn't exist. I kept the trial deliberately small and reversible, one team for four weeks, so that if it failed we lost nothing and nobody could say I'd bet the shift on a hunch. I squared the mobile device access with our information manager before we started, because I didn't want a data protection objection to sink a good idea halfway through, and I briefed the control room so they understood why those officers might be on scene a little longer.

Result

The data surprised me. The time saving I'd expected was modest. What moved sharply was the quality of the grading and the number of safeguarding referrals that followed, because officers were capturing at the door what they'd lost by the time they reached the station. We took it on across the team, two neighbouring teams picked it up, and the original sceptics were the ones who sold it to them.

Reflection

The part that stayed with me was that I'd set out to save time and the real prize turned out to be somewhere I wasn't looking. If I'd mandated it on day one I'd have got compliance and never learned that. Staying open wasn't a soft skill here, it's what made the change worth keeping.

Why it scores. He frames the change as a hypothesis with measures agreed in advance, looks outside policing for the principle, and brings the sceptics into designing it rather than overriding them. He's genuinely surprised by the evidence and follows it, which is the open minded part most candidates only claim, and the impact reaches beyond his own team.

At the next rank

At chief inspector you'd be embedding a climate where this kind of testing is normal across a command, and leading change from idea to evaluated impact at scale, rather than running a single trial yourself.

Now write your own We Are Innovative and Open Minded answer and have it scored against the descriptor for Inspector level.

Score your answer

Sergeant level

Courage

Whether you do the right thing when it's uncomfortable or unpopular, especially challenging poor behaviour at a genuine cost to yourself. Courage is moral as much as physical, and the panel scores the cost you were willing to carry.

Board question. Tell me about a time you challenged behaviour you believed was wrong, knowing it would be unpopular or cost you. What did you do?

Weak answer

There was some banter on the team that a couple of people weren't comfortable with. I wasn't keen on it either, so the next time it came up I said we should keep things professional. Most of them took it on board and it calmed down. I think it showed I'm prepared to step in and that I set the tone for the team. The main thing I learned is that you should always challenge things that aren't right.

Why it falls flat. Nothing here costs the sergeant anything, there's no detail of what was said or who it hurt, and keeping it professional is a deflection rather than a challenge. The reflection is a slogan, and courage the panel can score has to carry a real risk to the person showing it.

Strong answer

Situation

I was a fairly new sergeant on a long established team. One of the most experienced and well liked PCs made comments about one local community that had drifted from cynicism into something I'd call discriminatory. It was treated as harmless, people laughed along, and I'd started to hear two of the probationers repeat the same lines on the radio.

Task

I had to deal with it. The difficulty was real. He was popular, he'd been in the job longer than me, and challenging him would mark me out with a team I was still earning trust from. Doing nothing would have been easier and I knew it.

Action

I chose to deal with it in a way that might actually change it rather than just be seen to react. I thought about going straight to professional standards, but that would have been the easy route for me and the wrong one for the team, so I dealt with it myself in the open and kept a note of what I'd said and when, in case it didn't land and I had to escalate later. I spoke to him on his own first and was direct. I told him plainly the comments weren't acceptable, that I could hear newer officers echoing them, and that I wasn't prepared to have it on my team. He pushed back, said it was banter and I was taking it too seriously. I didn't get drawn into whether he meant any harm, because that wasn't the point. I stayed on the effect it was having and the standard I expected. When it surfaced again a week later in the writing room, I addressed it there and then, calmly, in front of the others, so the team saw the standard was real and applied to him as much as anyone. I wasn't out to humiliate him, the aim was a changed standard and not a scalp, so I was firm and then moved on. I also had a quieter word with the two probationers about the language they'd picked up.

Result

The comments stopped. It cost me some warmth from him for a few weeks, which I'd expected and accepted. What I hadn't expected was that one of the probationers came to me afterwards and said she'd been uncomfortable for months and hadn't felt able to say so. The tone on the team shifted, and not only on this.

Reflection

The honest cost was to a working relationship I needed, and I'd still do it the same way. What I learned was narrower than I expected. It wasn't really about that one officer, it was about the probationers watching what I let go. Silence from a supervisor isn't neutral, it reads as permission, and I set the standard by what I'm willing to stand in front of.

Why it scores. The challenge carries genuine personal cost and the sergeant takes the harder route of changing behaviour rather than performing a reaction. He holds the line when it's pushed back, the result shows the wider effect on people who'd stayed silent, and the reflection is two blunt lines rather than a slogan.

At the next rank

At inspector level the courage has to reach beyond your own team, for example challenging a decision or a culture above you where the risk is to your own standing rather than to team goodwill.

Now write your own Courage answer and have it scored against the descriptor for Sergeant level.

Score your answer

Chief Inspector level

Respect and Empathy

Whether you treat people and communities with genuine respect, manage your own bias, and let what you hear change what you do. At chief inspector this has to be cultural and structural, not just how you personally handle one encounter.

Board question. Tell me about a time you led genuine engagement with a community that had little trust in the police. What did you actually change?

Weak answer

Confidence in policing was low in one of the communities on my command. I arranged a series of engagement events where we could explain the work we were doing and reassure residents about how we use our powers. The events were well attended and the feedback was largely positive. I think it showed I'm committed to engaging with our communities and being visible. What I took from it is that good communication goes a long way to building trust.

Why it falls flat. This is a communications exercise dressed as engagement. He goes in to explain and reassure, which means he's defending the police rather than listening, nothing is shaped with the community and nothing actually changes operationally. At chief inspector, respect has to be cultural and structural, and trust is rebuilt by what you do, not what you tell people.

Strong answer

Situation

One community on my command, largely from minority ethnic backgrounds, had confidence scores in our surveys well below the force average, with a long history behind it that included how stop and search had been used there. My teams were doing more activity in the area and getting less trust for it.

Task

I could have treated this as a visibility and messaging problem, which was the comfortable option. I was clear with myself that if I went in to defend our record I'd make it worse. The job was to genuinely understand the experience from their side and let that change what we did, not to reassure them about what we already did.

Action

I went to the community sessions personally, and I went to listen rather than to account for our performance. I was honest that this wasn't always comfortable, because some of what I heard was fair criticism of decisions my own command had made. I also went after the data rather than relying on the loudest voices in a room, looking at our complaints, our stop and search disproportionality and who we were and weren't hearing from, so I understood the pattern and not just the anecdotes. What I heard reshaped our tasking. I resisted the easy fix of a one off engagement event, because those buy a good photograph and change nothing. Instead I made a community scrutiny panel a standing fixture with real access to our data, I had body worn footage from a sample of stops reviewed with community members in the room, and I changed how and where we used the power off the back of what that surfaced. I made sure we reported back on what had actually changed and not just on what we'd heard, because accountability runs both ways. When one of my inspectors pushed back that this was second guessing his officers, I held the line and reframed it as the thing that protected them, because a stop that survives that kind of scrutiny is one no complaint can touch.

Result

Over about a year, confidence in that community rose for the first time in three years of surveys, and our disproportionality narrowed without losing the legitimate searches. The scrutiny panel became a permanent part of how the command worked rather than a one off. The change that mattered most was that my inspectors started treating community confidence as part of the job, not a soft add on.

Reflection

What I took from it was that respect at this level isn't how I treat the person in front of me, it's whether I'll let what a community tells me change decisions I'm responsible for. Listening that doesn't change anything is just a better managed complaint.

Why it scores. He resists the comms reflex, goes in to listen rather than defend, and uses data alongside the conversations so it isn't driven by the loudest voice. The respect shows in structural change, real external scrutiny and reporting back, and in embedding it across his inspectors, and the reflection defines the value at command level.

At the next rank

At sergeant or inspector level this same value would show in how you treat people directly and set the tone for a team. At chief inspector it has to be cultural and structural, measured by community outcomes rather than by how well you personally handled one encounter.

Now write your own Respect and Empathy answer and have it scored against the descriptor for Chief Inspector level.

Score your answer

Chief Inspector level

Public Service

Whether you act in the public interest above what's convenient or popular inside the organisation, and hold to it when it costs you. At chief inspector the panel wants you to weigh public good against internal pressure and choose the public, knowing it won't be thanked.

Board question. Tell me about a decision where acting in the public interest meant going against an easier or more popular internal option. What did it cost you?

Weak answer

There was pressure to move resource off neighbourhood policing to bring our response times down, because that's what we were being judged on. I felt neighbourhood work mattered more to the public, so I made the case to keep it, and in the end we protected most of the team. I think it showed I always put the public first and I'm willing to stand up for what matters. What I took from it is that you have to keep the public at the heart of every decision.

Why it falls flat. He protected a team and kept most of it, so nothing was really sacrificed and there was no genuine cost. The opposing pressure is sketched in a line, and keeping the public at the heart of every decision is a motto rather than evidence. Public service the panel can score has to involve a real choice where holding to the public interest costs you something.

Strong answer

Situation

My command was under pressure on one headline figure, our sanction detection rate, which sat on the chief officer scorecard and which my own boss had publicly committed to lifting. The quickest way to move it was to push my teams towards the easy to detect, low harm offences that close quickly and count the same as anything else.

Task

The easy and more popular option was to chase the number, because it would have made my command look better in exactly the place it was being judged. But it would have pulled effort away from the high harm work that mattered most to the public and didn't move that particular metric. I had to decide which I was really there to serve.

Action

I didn't do it on rhetoric, because at that level it would have been picked apart. I had the analysts model exactly where the easy detections would come from, and it confirmed the worry, the quickest route to the target ran straight through shoplifting recoveries and cannabis warnings that close fast and count the same as a rape or a robbery. I built the case around harm rather than volume, showing what chasing the number would cost in capacity for the domestic abuse and vulnerable victim work that actually mattered to the public. I also did the honest thing and modelled what holding the line would do to my own figures, so nobody could say I hadn't seen the cost coming. I took it to my superintendent knowing it wasn't what he wanted to hear, and I was straight that I wasn't willing to buy a scorecard number at the expense of victims who'd never see that scorecard. I proposed we measure the command on something closer to public harm rather than raw detections, and I accepted my headline figure would sit below my peers' for a while. I said the same thing plainly to my own inspectors, because I wasn't going to ask them to hold a line I wouldn't defend upward myself.

Result

We held the resource on the high harm work. For two quarters my detection rate sat below the others and I had to own that in uncomfortable rooms. Over the year our outcomes for domestic abuse and repeat vulnerable victims improved materially, and the force eventually shifted to a harm based measure closer to what I'd argued for.

Reflection

What I took from it was that public service is easy to claim when it also flatters your figures. The test is whether you'll hold to it when doing the right thing makes you, for a while, look worse than the person next to you. That's the version that actually counts.

Why it scores. He names a genuine conflict between a scorecard and the public interest, grounds the choice in evidence rather than rhetoric, and accepts a real and visible cost to his own standing to protect vulnerable victims. He holds the line upward and with his own teams, is honest about the short term hit before the longer gain, and the reflection defines the value precisely.

At the next rank

At sergeant or inspector level this value would show in a single decision where you put public need above the easier option. At chief inspector it has to be weighed at the level of a command's performance and reputation, and held against senior pressure.

Now write your own Public Service answer and have it scored against the descriptor for Chief Inspector level.

Score your answer

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Common questions

CVF examples, answered.

What are the CVF competencies and values?

The Competency and Values Framework has six competencies and three values. The competencies are We Are Emotionally Aware, We Take Ownership, We Collaborate, We Support and Inspire, We Analyse Critically, and We Are Innovative and Open Minded. The three values are Courage, Respect and Empathy, and Public Service. Promotion boards score your evidence against these, and you should expect to be tested on a mix of competencies and values rather than all nine.

How many CVF examples should I prepare?

Aim for a bank of strong, distinct examples that cover the full framework, not one rehearsed answer per competency. A good rule is to prepare examples flexible enough to be reframed against more than one competency or value, because the same incident can evidence ownership, courage or analysis depending on which part you lead with. Quality and adaptability beat volume. Six to eight genuinely strong stories you know inside out will serve you better than fifteen thin ones.

Do CVF answers differ by rank?

Yes, and this is where most candidates lose marks. The structure of a strong answer stays the same at every rank, but the altitude changes. A sergeant evidences a single relationship or decision. An inspector shows influence beyond their direct span of control, across teams or through their sergeants. A chief inspector demonstrates judgement that shapes a whole function, an organisation or a community. Present a perfectly good answer one rank too low and the panel will mark it down even though nothing in it is wrong.

What is the STARR structure and why does it matter for CVF answers?

STARR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result and Reflection. It keeps your answer focused on what you personally did and what it achieved, rather than rambling through context. The Reflection at the end is the part most candidates rush or skip, and it is often where the marks live, because the CVF rewards officers who can show genuine self awareness and learning. A well structured STARR answer makes it easy for the panel to find the evidence they are scoring.

Why do strong and weak CVF answers score so differently when the story is the same?

The panel scores evidence, not events. A weak answer describes a competent process and a generic lesson. A strong answer shows what the candidate noticed, what they were curious about before acting, the decision they owned and a specific personal reflection. Two officers can handle an identical situation equally well, but only one reveals the thinking the framework is built to assess. The story is rarely the problem. How you tell it almost always is.

Should I use I or we in my CVF answers?

Use I. The panel is assessing you, not your team. Collective language like we agreed or we decided hides the individual contribution the framework is trying to measure. Describe the team context honestly where it matters, but every action, decision and reflection that you want credit for should be clearly yours. This single habit separates a lot of average answers from strong ones.

Practise these out loud.

Reading a strong answer is not the same as delivering one with a panel watching. In State6 you write your own CVF answer, get it scored against the descriptors, then say it out loud against a timer in the Mock Board. That is what turns a model answer into your answer.

Get started with State6 See the Mock Board

Want the structure behind every strong answer above? The Learn STARR page walks through Situation, Task, Action, Result and Reflection in full.