Cayman police to offer full scholarships at UK university

Cayman’s police chiefs have struck a deal with a British university to run a tailor-made course designed to prepare the service’s future leaders.

The leadership and management programme will be run by the University of Portsmouth and offer an honours Bachelor of Science in Professional Policing, created with Caymanian conditions in mind. Students will be funded by the government.

Commissioner of Police Kurt Walton said he was keen to “invest in our future leaders” and the course would be of major value to officers at the sergeant and inspector level.

He added, “What we have done is created a framework which is bespoke for the Caymanian islands.”

Walton said that although Cayman has strong links to the UK and the Portsmouth degree is licensed by the Britain’s College of Policing, it was “not a copy and paste” of British courses.

“This is all about succession planning … where I expect the police service to be in five, 10, 20 years.”

He was speaking after the programme was launched at the Marriott Grand Cayman Resort on Friday, 27 Feb.

He earlier told the audience, which included Governor Jane Owen and Deputy Governor Franz Manderson, that he had originally wanted to work in education and applied for a government study grant in the mid-1980s, but joined the police after he had submitted the forms.

Walton said he decided to stay on in the police after the grant was approved a year later, but had retained an interest in education and later earned a law degree through the University of Liverpool and the Truman Bodden Law School.

“It’s really something that is dear to my heart that we can bring this into our police service.

“For me, today marks a significant milestone towards the continued professionalism of our service.”

He said he would eventually retire, so it was important to create “a resilient organisation with a lot of young faces so in 10 or 20 years, when I am gone and a lot of the senior management are no longer there, we can leave it in safe hands.”

The course, which was two years in the making, was drawn up with help from the UK’s City and Guilds, a specialist in vocational training for almost 150 years, as well as from the College of Policing.

“We are aligning ourselves with recognised international best practices.”

But he emphasised that he did not want “a framework that is tailored to the UK”.

He explained Cayman had “unique operational challenges” and that the new course would give “long lasting resilience over the next 20 years, bearing in mind policing will evolve.”

Walton said he regarded the course as “part of his legacy” and a major plank in the development of the service.

He added in the run-up to International Women’s Month in March, “I certainly want to see more female officers at a senior level, executive level.

“There is a whole lot I want to achieve and this just happens to be one of those.”

Sam Egerton, the head of global recognitions at the City and Guilds Group, said, “We had lots of focus groups with Cayman police officers … we really got a feel for what are the problems on the ground.”

He added the priorities for the Cayman police were “the principles of leadership and management and to make sure it goes all the way through”.

Egerton said, “There are great leaders in this organisation. We can see it and feel it, but it needs to be throughout the organisation, no matter what rank or what role.”