Police Online Assessment 2026: Interview, Written and Briefing Exercises Explained

Section 1

How police selection works in 2026

1. 1

   Apply and eligibility checks

   You apply to your chosen force, which checks that you are eligible.

2. 2

   Sift

   In force or national, depending on the force you apply to.

3. 3

   Online assessment

   Three exercises, about 2 hours 20 minutes of exercise time in total across separate sittings.

4. 4

   In force final interview

   Almost every force runs its own interview after a pass.

5. 5

   Fitness, medical, references and vetting

   Your force’s own checks, in the order it sets.

Play the College of Policing film on the online assessment process

The online assessment is the same wherever you apply, so your preparation travels with you. It replaced the old in-person assessment centre, and its three exercises are taken online on the Tazio platform. This page follows the College’s published candidate guidance, which you can read on the College of Policing website.

Throughout, you are assessed against the Competency and Values Framework at Level 1, the practitioner standard. Not against legal knowledge, and not against policing experience, because you are not expected to have any.

Section 2

The entry routes in brief

There are several routes into the rank of constable. The Police Constable Entry Programme (PCEP) is the non-degree route most forces now advertise. The Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship (PCDA) is a three year apprenticeship that earns a degree while you serve. The Degree Holder Entry Programme (DHEP) is a two year route for graduates, and some universities offer a pre-join degree in professional policing.

Whichever route you choose, the selection process is broadly the same, so the preparation below applies to all of them. We compare every current route side by side, including the detective routes and Police Now, in our police entry routes guide.

Section 3

The sift

Before the online assessment you complete a sift, which screens your suitability to progress. Depending on the force this is either an in-force exercise or the national sift. The national sift is made up of two parts, a situational judgement test and a behavioural styles questionnaire, both built around the behaviours in the CVF. It is completed online, and your force tells you which version applies and when.

Section 4

The competency-based interview

The interview is the heart of the online assessment. Its five questions ask how you have dealt with situations in the past, or how you might deal with one in the future, and you record each answer once. Whichever way a question is put, you answer it with a real example you have lived.

Your examples can come from anywhere in your life. The College says work and personal life both count: retail, hospitality, university, the military, caring for family, volunteering. The assessors are looking for evidence of the behaviours below in whatever life you have actually lived, not for policing stories.

The five areas are three values and two competencies, listed in the College’s current candidate guide, updated in July 2026, under their CVF 2024 names. Older copies showed integrity and transparency in place of courage and left respect and empathy to the written exercise, where it is still marked too, so treat that older list as out of date.

What the interview marks, area by area

Each area below comes with one stem of the kind the interview asks for it. None is a live question, and your answer has to come from your own life.

Twenty stems, four for each area, and how answers are marked are in the police competency based interview guide.

The College sets out STAR as a common way to structure answers: the situation in brief, the task you faced, the actions you personally took, and the result. Most of your five minutes should live in the actions, told as “I” rather than “we”, because the assessor can only credit what you did.

The College warns that evidence of a prepared script can mean an automatic fail. Rather than memorising answers, practise speaking your real examples out loud until the structure comes naturally.

Section 5

The written exercise

You take on the role of a police constable and complete an urgent written task for your line manager. You are given four items of information and build your response using only what is in front of you; inventing extra facts is specifically ruled out. Spelling and grammar are not assessed, and no legal knowledge is required.

What the pack tends to contain

The College does not publish the pack, but the four items tend to be drawn from a mix like this:

• An email or letter from a resident
• An incident log or report
• A note or briefing from your line manager
• A map, data sheet or local information

How a strong response is put together

1. 1.Read all four items before you write anything.
2. 2.Name the issues the material raises.
3. 3.Say who is affected, and how.
4. 4.Recommend actions you can justify from the material.
5. 5.Weigh the risks of what you recommend.
6. 6.Say how people will be kept informed and reassured.

A response that only summarises the documents leaves the marker little to credit.

What the marker credits

• Respect and empathy: you see how the issue affects each person in the pack and treat their concerns fairly.
• We analyse critically: your conclusions come from the documents, weighed against each other, not from assumptions brought in from outside.
• We support and inspire: your recommendations are clear enough to act on, and you would stand behind them.
• We collaborate: you say who you would work with, inside the police and beyond it, to resolve the issue.

The kind of task the exercise sets

These are stems to plan against, not the live exercise and not a response; yours has to come from the pack you are given on the day.

• “Your sergeant asks for a written briefing on the concerns raised by residents of a street in your area, and what you propose.”
• “Your line manager wants a short report on complaints about antisocial behaviour near a row of shops, setting out the issues and your recommendations.”

Section 6

The briefing exercise

The briefing exercise is the one applicants tend to fear most, mainly because they have never done anything like it. You take the role of a constable dealing with some issues presented to you, and you answer every question out loud.

How it runs, in the College’s order

1. 1.Preparation material. Read it for about 10 minutes. This stage is untimed and is not assessed.
2. 2.Part one. Four questions. A video reads each one; you get up to 60 seconds to think, then 180 seconds to answer.
3. 3.Part two. New information, then four more questions on the same timings.
4. 4.Part three. More new information and the last four questions, 12 in all.

What the new information tends to do: raise the stakes, add a person or agency, or change the facts you planned around.

A routine for the thinking minute

Use the thinking time to answer these for yourself, in this order:

1. 1.What is the issue?
2. 2.Who is affected?
3. 3.What would you do first, and why?
4. 4.What risk are you managing?
5. 5.How do people hear from you?

The kind of question the exercise asks

These are stems to practise with, not the live questions, and there are no model answers here.

• “What are the main issues in what you have read?”
• “Who would you speak to first, and why?”
• “The picture has changed: what do you do now?”
• “How would you make sure the community feels listened to?”

The assessors are not looking for a single correct answer, and the College says no policing knowledge is needed. They are listening for whether you identify the real issues, explain your reasoning, weigh risk and the impact on people, and adapt when the picture changes.

The full walkthrough, with more stems and the places applicants lose marks, is in our police briefing exercise guide.

Section 7

CVF Level 1, explained for applicants

Every stage above marks you against the same thing: the Competency and Values Framework at Level 1, the practitioner standard. Level 1 does not expect leadership of teams or strategic thinking. It expects honest, concrete evidence of how you behave, and that can come from any part of your life. A shift where you calmed an angry customer can evidence respect and empathy just as well as any policing story could.

We break down all three values and six competencies, in plain English and with everyday examples you can use, in our full CVF Level 1 guide. The College’s original framework is published here.

Section 8

The in-force final interview

The stage most guides forget about

Passing the online assessment does not finish the job. Nearly every force in England and Wales then runs its own final interview, and we have reviewed the published recruitment guidance of all 43 forces to map how it works.

The common shape: a panel of usually two people, somewhere between 20 and 45 minutes, asking past-focused questions against the CVF at Level 1, with follow-up probes into your answers. Almost every force adds motivation questions too, such as why policing and why this force in particular.

Two pieces of preparation carry this stage. First, your CVF examples, sharpened by the online assessment, do double duty here. Second, research the force: its values and the issues its area actually deals with. Our force pages are a good starting point. The panel notices the difference between an applicant who wants to be a police officer and one who wants to be one of their police officers.

Section 9

How to prepare, and the resit rules

You get two attempts a year. Treat the first one as the one that counts.

The College’s resit policy is blunt. If you fail the online assessment you wait at least three months to resit, you repeat every exercise, and you are limited to two attempts in any 12 month period. A failed attempt does not just sting, it can push your application back the best part of a year once force timetables are taken into account.

Preparation that actually makes a difference looks like this. Map your life for CVF Level 1 evidence and pick your strongest examples before the day. Learn the STAR structure until you can hold it without notes, because notes are banned. Then practise the real format out loud, against the real timings, enough times that a one-take, five-minute spoken answer feels normal rather than terrifying.

Section 10

Is there a police online assessment pass rate?

Not a published one. The College of Policing does not publish a pass rate for the online assessment, so treat any single national figure you come across with caution.

What the College does publish is how you are marked. Assessors mark each exercise against the Competency and Values Framework at Level 1, and your personalised feedback report shows your score for each exercise and what stronger performers did. Your own scores are the numbers that matter, because they show where to aim if you need a second attempt.

Some forces have released figures under Freedom of Information; they vary by force and by year. This page will carry figures, with their source, when we hold a reply.

Section 11

Rules that catch applicants out

Each of these comes from the College’s candidate guide.

• No second device within sight or reach. Phones, tablets, laptops, second monitors, smart speakers and smartwatches all count, so clear them away before you start.
• Appeals within 24 hours. An appeal is made in writing to your recruiting force within 24 hours of sitting. Extenuating circumstances you know about before you sit have to be raised then, and lack of preparation does not count as one.
• One force at a time. A pass may transfer to another force later, but that is the receiving force’s decision.
• Notes only after the question appears. Nothing prepared in advance, in any exercise. Notes made once a question is on screen are allowed, and so are notes while you read the briefing exercise preparation material.
• Copy and paste can fail you. Pasting into the written exercise from another application may mean automatic failure, so type your response on the platform itself.
• Adjustments go through your force. If a condition could put you at a disadvantage, ask your recruiting force about reasonable adjustments before you sit. The platform also carries the Recite Me accessibility toolbar.
• Technical support keeps office hours. Support runs from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, and responds in about 15 minutes, with a chatbot outside those hours. A genuine technical fault may earn you a retake, but do not finish an exercise while the fault is live.
• Watch your inbox. Your invitation comes from the Tazio platform and your results from police.assessments@notifications.service.gov.uk. Add support@tazio.co.uk and that address to your safe senders, and check your junk folder.
• Your force pays for each sitting. The process costs your recruiting force up to £216 per applicant, one more reason to book only when you are ready.

Section 12

Frequently asked questions