5. Training

Operations. There is a structured six weeks' in-house pre-entry training program. This combines on-the-job training with residential courses and provides essential knowledge and insight into the job. Depending on your work area, there can be advanced training given to selected customs officers (in ship engine room search techniques for example). Following this six-week period you are placed with a mentor for the first month of the job for support and on-the-job developmental training. If you have met the necessary criteria you are then signed-off from the mentor. This is flexible however, if you have not yet grasped some aspects of the job, you are given more time.

Continual professional development (CPD) is encouraged; you can take as many developmental courses as you like provided they are shown to enhance your work. Opportunities also exist to study for work-related qualifications.

Administration. Training is considered very important and can be on-the-job, a specific training package or a residential course. If the latter is not feasible for you it is possible to arrange for someone to come and do the training in the work place. Training is no longer general induction training but is targeted for each specific job. You will also be placed with a mentor or coach from the department.

This area of Customs has a learning-management training system. This is an intranet-based site offering hundreds of training opportunities: on CD-rom, through the internet, classroom training and external training.

6. Career Development

Career development tends to involve working your way up the job bands. Customs officers typically start their career in VAT collection work. It is possible and quite common, to swap disciplines by transferring across departments to other areas of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC)*. For example, you could move from VAT to working in the docks, then transfer to investigations - there are plenty of opportunities for a very varied career. The number of posts offering a crown transfer (all your costs covered for you) is limited.

Career progression is largely up to the individual. There is also a fast-track scheme through which you can get to senior management grade within four years. This scheme is open to both graduates and internal applicants. However, this is oversubscribed and so is relatively hard to get on to.

7. Related Occupations

• Immigration officer, passport control

• Inspector of health and safety

• Trading standards officer

• Excise and inland customs officer

• Armed Forces officer, operational

• Armed Forces officer, logistics/support/administrative

• Civil Service fast streamer

• Police officer

Comments:

1. HND, Higher National Diploma is a higher education qualification in the United Kingdom. This qualification can be used to gain entry into universities, and is considered equivalent to the second year of a three year university degree course.

2. Civil Service, Her Majesty's Home Civil Service, also known as the Home Civil Service, is the permanent bureaucracy of Crown employees that supports Her Majesty's Government. Civil servants are employees of the Crown and not Parliament.

3. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) - Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is a non-ministerial department of the UK Government responsible for the collection of taxes and the payment of some forms of state support.