Everyone applying for a promotion or reference for a new job has waited with bated breath for that key appraisal from their boss. If you are applying for some of the best police jobs in Britain, the chances are that the guv’nor will rate you as “exceptional”.

So many contenders for top jobs at Scotland Yard are rated exceptional by their superiors that the director of human resources for the Met has been left wondering what to do.

According to the latest edition of Police Review, Martin Tiplady, the director, told a national conference of personnel experts that he knew of no other organisation which recorded “so many people as swans rather than geese”.

Mr Tiplady, voted the top personel director in Britain earlier this year, said he had recently received 60 applications for new chief superintendents.

When he went through the papers with the applications, 70 per cent had been described as “exceptional”. The jobs carry a starting salary of £70,000 and are the crucial first step to becoming a chief constable. Mr Tiplady said: “In no group of people are there 70 per cent of incumbents who are exceptional. This is unique to the police.”

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