Police Academy and Use-of-Force Assessments for Special Investigating Officers

Police officers are not the only ones who are authorised to use force under certain conditions when doing their jobs: special investigating officers may too. The conditions that apply to special investigating officers are set out in the Use of Force by Special Investigating Officers and Officers of Special Investigative Services (Review) Regulations (RTGB). Special investigating officers receive training in this field, and their skills are assessed. If they pass the assessment, they receive a certificate. Without a positive result, they are not permitted to use force and cannot carry any means of force.

Officially, the Police Academy is solely involved in the development of the tests, and the assessment and certification of the RTGB examiners. But over the past few years, the Police Academy has also conducted the assessment of special investigating officers, and therefore their certification and recertification. The Academy did this for 140 of the 600 special investigating officer employers. The demand for assessment has increased over the past few years, while the number of personnel available at the Police Academy is decreasing. Therefore, the Police Academy, together with the Ministry of Justice and Security, is trying to find a structural solution for the assessment of special investigative officers; the Police Academy can no longer handle this on its own.

Increased demand for assessment

Officially, the training and assessment of the special investigative officers is the responsibility of their employers, such as the municipalities and other investigative agencies. About 460 employers outsource this responsibility to other institutions, which are required to use the assessments developed by the Police Academy. A further 140 employers have asked the Police Academy to conduct the assessment – not just the initial assessment, but also the recertification. This is the situation as it has grown up over recent years, even though it is not officially part of the Police Academy’s tasks.

In recent years, the demand has risen to about 6,000 certification and recertification assessments per year. But the consequences of increased demand and decreased personnel availability were already felt in the past year. The waiting list continued to grow. From September, the Police Academy was forced to inform applicants that no new applications could be accepted. Eventually, the Police Academy was unable to meet the demand in several hundreds of cases.

Catching up

At the end of December, the Police Academy went all out to catch up, assessing all the remaining special investigative officers from the 140 institutions that could not be served earlier.

In 2026, though, the Police Academy will continue assessment and certification, but will stop recertification. Certificates are only valid for a limited period, which is why the officers have to pass recertification tests. Recertification will be phased out in 2026. The Police Academy will actively contribute ideas about how to transfer this responsibility to other external parties.

Contributing ideas towards a good solution

Leonard Kok, Director of the Police Academy: ‘The news reports on this gave the impression that we had stopped doing one of our tasks. That’s a pity, as the situation is actually quite different. Service provision is second nature to the Police Academy. That’s what gave rise to the situation of us taking on the assessment and certification responsibility for a limited number of employers of special investigative officers. Now we’ve reached the limit of what we can do, but we’re happy to contribute ideas towards a good structural solution. A solution that also does justice to the statutory duties of the Police Academy. Of course, we too want there to be enough special investigative officers who can safely conduct their important tasks in the interest of safety and security in the Netherlands.’