Inspector Promotion Process 2026 - Internal Competition

Rank

Inspector 

Position Summary 

The Inspector is a senior leadership role responsible for the management and coordination of all activities within their respective division in alignment with departmental goals, values, and strategic priorities. Inspectors create positive, inclusive work environments and motivate employees to achieve organizational objectives through visible, engaged, and ethical leadership.

The Inspector role carries an expectation of extended availability, command readiness, and organizational presence. Inspectors are required to provide leadership both during and outside of standard duty hours and to represent the Victoria Police Department at operational, ceremonial, and community events as required.

Position Function - Major Areas of Responsibility

Leading

• Performance Development  
  
  
  
  • Ensures performance development systems and accountability mechanisms are in place within their division.
  
  
  • Ensures performance reviews are completed in a timely and meaningful manner.  
  
  
  • Identifies performance standards for employees, monitors individual performance, provides and solicits feedback and assists employees in achieving performance goals through training and mentorship.
  
  
  • Completes formal reports on employee’s performance.
  
  
  
  


• Change Management  
  
  
  
  • Recognizes that the organization is continuously evolving and demonstrates the ability to innovate and implement new approaches to achieving organizational goals.
  
  
  
  


• Professionalism  
  
  
  
  • Sets a strong example by consistently demonstrating the core values of the organization.
  
  
  • Takes affirmative action when organizational values and professional standards are not met.
  
  
  • Proactively ensures a respectful, inclusive, and psychologically safe workplace.
  
  
  
  


• Motivation  
  
  
  
  • Creates a positive, inclusive environment that is supportive and encouraging.
    
  
  
  • Assists employees in aligning personal goals with organizational priorities.
    
  
  
  
  

Planning

• Goal Setting  
  
  
  
  • Facilitates the establishment of divisional goals and objectives and develops strategies for their achievement.
    
  
  
  • Sets and clearly communicates performance and operational standards.
  
  
  
  


• Budget Maintenance  
  
  
  
  • Ensures operating budgets are developed, managed, and monitored in accordance with established practices and information systems.
  
  
  
  

Organizing

• Human Resources
  
  
  
  
  
  • Deploys employees in accordance with divisional objectives, safety considerations, labour relations guidelines, personnel compatibility, projects, and crime analysis projections.
  
  
  • Recognizes that these factors directly affect employee health, wellbeing, and operational effectiveness.
  
  
  
  


• Non-Human Resources  
  
  
  
  
  
  • Ensures mandates, finances, organizational structures, facilities, and other resources organized to support divisional and departmental objectives.
  
  
  
  

Community Safety and Wellbeing

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  • Actively supports a community-based policing approach that prioritizes community safety and wellbeing.
  
  
  • Engages relevant community stakeholders, including neighbourhood associations, Bylaw Services, housing providers, social service agencies, Island Health, and all levels of government, to collaboratively address community issues.
  
  
  
  

Intelligence Led Policing

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  • Participates in and encourages the commitment to intelligence led policing principles and departmental priorities.
  
  
  
  

Community Engagement and Organizational Representation

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  • Actively represents the Victoria Police Department at community, ceremonial, and public events, including those occurring outside of standard duty hours, such as Remembrance Day services, parades, commemorations, and other significant civic or departmental functions.
  
  
  • Demonstrates visible leadership presence that reinforces public trust, police legitimacy, and organizational values.
  
  
  • Actively involves self and others in engagement with community partners, other police agencies, and stakeholders to promote a positive image of the department and advance departmental and community interests.
  
  
  
  

Committee Work

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  • Actively participates in, and encourages involvement in, committees and working groups that further departmental and community interests.
    
  
  
  
  

Management Oversight

• Discipline  
  
  
  
  • Ensures discipline is maintained at all levels for dress and deportment, departmental regulations, respectful workplace, and legal requirements.  
  
  
  • Consults with the Executive Services Division Officer in Charge and the Administrative Deputy Chief in matters relating to the Police Act.
  
  
  
  

• Labour Relations

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  • In consultation with the Human Resources Division, as required, is responsible for their division in matters pertaining to labour relations.  Ensures Departmental protocol is followed when dealing with labour process.  Ensures performance problems and issues are dealt with proactively using a performance management or progressive discipline approach.
  
  
  • Ensures departmental protocols are followed and performance issues are addressed proactively through performance management or progressive discipline processes.
    
  
  
  
  

• Administrative Controls
  
  
  
  • Ensures administrative controls are in place to evaluate budgets, operational deployment, authorized leaves, performance reviews, and reconciliation accounting.
  
  
  • Conducts or directs periodic audits to ensure compliance with departmental and divisional policies and objectives.
    
  
  
  
  

Organizational Awareness

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  • Demonstrates the ability to understand and manage relationships within the department and with external agencies and organizations.
  
  
  • Understands the unique nature of police systems and culture and anticipates how new events or decisions may affect partners and stakeholders.
  
  
  • Operates effectively within both formal and informal organizational structures.
  
  
  
  

Financial Acumen

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  • Provides input into strategic financial planning as it relates to the City of Victoria, the Township of Esquimalt, and the Victoria Police Department.
  
  
  • Ensures divisional operations remain within approved budgets and provides sound rationale when expenditures exceed forecasts.
  
  
  
  

Teamwork

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  • Contributes to and encourages participation in team activities.
  
  
  • Shares information, ideas, and experience with others.
  
  
  • Demonstrates commitment to collective decisions and organizational goals.
  
  
  • Provides direction, vision, support, and encouragement to teams and individuals.
  
  
  
  

Availability, Duty Officer, and Command Responsibilities

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  • Maintains availability and readiness to perform senior command functions outside of regular business hours.
  
  
  • Actively participates in the Duty Officer, Critical Incident Commander, and Public Order Commander roles, as assigned.
  
  
  • Recognizes that the Inspector role is not confined to scheduled shifts and requires flexibility to meet operational, ceremonial, and organizational demands.
  
  
  • Supports departmental needs during major incidents, emergencies, and significant public or ceremonial events regardless of timing.
  
  
  
  

Compensation Recognition for Extended Responsibilities

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  • In recognition of the extended hours, command responsibilities, and availability requirements inherent in the Inspector role, Inspectors receive vacation leave in lieu of overtime in accordance with the Inspector Collective Agreement:
    
    
    
    • An additional eighty (80) working hours of vacation leave each calendar year as a bonus in lieu of overtime.
      • An additional forty (40) working hours of vacation leave each calendar year in recognition of Critical Incident, Public Order, and Duty Officer responsibilities.
    
    
    
    This vacation entitlement reflects the expectation that Inspectors will routinely perform duties beyond standard hours, including attendance at organizational, operational, and community events.
  
  
  
  

CORE COMPETENCIES

 
Achievement Orientation

• Focuses efforts on achieving set policing standards of excellence. Sets standards of excellence for work to be completed within area of responsibility.  Encourages others to try new ways to get things done, while taking steps to reduce the risks.  Creates opportunities for others to work on new projects or assignments that add value, without compromising current accountabilities.

Decision Making

• Makes decisions involving varied levels of risk and ambiguity.  Makes complex decisions for which there is no set procedure.  Considers a multiplicity of interrelated factors for which there is incomplete and contradictory information.  Balances competing priorities in reaching decisions.

Ethical Accountability and Responsibility

• Takes responsibility for actions and makes decisions that are consistent with high ethical policing standards.  Communicates the organization’s values and ethics.  Ensures that standards and safeguards are in place to protect the organization’s integrity.  Develops policies and measures to integrate ethics within the organization.  Facilitates research on best practices.  Participates in defining ethical policing practice.

Fostering Relationships

• Seeks and builds alliances with internal and external partners to meet their needs and further the organization's objectives.  Uses an understanding of needs, desires, and critical success factors to influence priorities, initiatives and objectives and teaches others to do the same.  Provides advice and direction on the types of partnerships to pursue and emphasizes the importance of these relationships to the organization’s success.  Intervenes, as necessary, to assist others to address or resolve issues surrounding partner relationships.  

Interactive Communication

• Utilizes communication strategies, including active listening to promote understanding and identify shared interests, to achieve common goals, influence, and gain others’ support.  Handles complex on-the-spot questions.  Communicates complex issues clearly and credibly with widely varied audiences.  Facilitates the understanding of complex messages.  Expresses concerns effectively in a confrontational setting.

Organizational Awareness

• Understands and uses organizational awareness to deliver optimal services.  Seeks to understand the critical concerns and most important issues to find optimal solutions.  Anticipates issues, challenges and outcomes and effectively operates to best position the organization.  Supports the changing culture and methods of operating.  Understands, and addresses, the reasons for on-going organizational behavior or the underlying problems, opportunities or political forces affecting the organization.

Resource Management

• Ensures the effective and efficient use of resources, whether human, financial, material, or informational.  Identifies gaps in resources that impact on the policing operations’ effectiveness.  Develops strategies to address resource gaps/issues.  Ensures alignment of authority, responsibility, and accountability with policing objectives.

Strategic Thinking

• Analyzes and understands information from a broad perspective to anticipate problems or consequences and address issues strategically.  Foresees longer-term implications of proposed positions, options and approaches that are not readily apparent.  Exercises sound judgment in new situations in the absence of specific guidance.  Identifies and considers emerging opportunities and risks when articulating astute and defensible options and recommendations.  Strategically provides new information or data to key decision makers and interested parties to influence their understanding and decisions.  Demonstrates insightful understanding of the organizational context and priorities, how they interact and how they affect issues.

Visioning

• Supports, promotes, and ensures alignment of services with the organization's vision and values.  Sets strategic goals and approaches in line with the Strategic Plan.  Scans external and internal environments to identify and assess emerging trends, opportunities and threats that may influence future directions.  Responds to emerging trends with initiatives that are aligned with policing vision and values.  Promotes a shared understanding of policing vision, and implications for organizational direction.

Preferred Qualifications, Skills, and Commitment

Competencies

• All Inspector level core competencies identified by the Police Sector Council and position specific competencies outlined above.

Education and Training

• Post secondary education, police leadership programs and/or external management designations.


• Membership in related professional organizations.


• Demonstrated commitment to ongoing personal and professional development.

Demonstrated Experience

• Experience with and understanding of the following areas, preferably in the form of previous work experience.  In addition, external supervisory or management experience is highly desirable.

Police Administration

• Experience in the area includes:
  
  
  
  • Executive level writing and critical analysis skills.
  
  
  • Business case development and project management.
  
  
  • Contemporary human resource practices.
    
  
  
  • Performance assessment, management, and associated documentation.
    
  
  
  • Discipline procedures - including the Police Act process and labour law framework.
    
  
  
  • Statistics and statistical reporting.
    
  
  
  • Public sector budgeting and financial management.
  
  
  • Public sector management principles.
  
  
  • Review of expense requests, leave requests and other issues that impact organizational resources.
  
  
  • Reading, interpreting and summarizing case law.
  
  
  • Reading, interpreting and drafting policy and procedure.
  
  
  • Preparing compelling and accurate documents that integrate legal, operational, and practical issues into effective departmental policy.
  
  
  • Effective communication in meetings and group settings comprised of executive level internal and external stakeholders.
  
  
  • Develop, implement, manage, and monitor strategic plans and priorities within area(s) of responsibility.
  
  
  • Lead and support change initiatives.
  
  
  • Apply an EDI lens in decision making.
  
  
  • Drafting, reviewing, and approving media messages.  Provide live or recorded media interviews in relation to area(s) of responsibility.
  
  
  • Regular critical evaluation of performance within own area(s) of responsibility.
    
  
  
  
  

Police Operations

• Experience in the area includes:
  
  
  
  • Previous assignments in a wide variety of policing operations, including front-line work, investigative services, specialty assignments, and progression through positions of increasing responsibility.
  
  
  • Exposure to critical incident management / public order principles and decision-making.
  
  
  • Experience in supervising, motivating, and directing others.
  
  
  • Recognized expertise in a particular area of policing (in addition to the above).
    
  
  
  
  

Commitment

• This includes:
  
  
  
  • Commitment to building a police department that is reflective of our diverse community that includes an EDI and respectful workplace focus.
  
  
  • Commitment to an extra investment and time and commitment to ensuring tasks and objectives are met.
  
  
  • Commitment to emotional intelligence and the ability to recognize, understand, manage, and effectively use emotions, both self and others, to handle various situations and interactions in a balanced and productive manner.
  
  
  • Demonstrated understanding of the value of community engagement principles and the need for police legitimacy.
  
  
  • Experience with community boards of directors, steering committees, joint management groups, or other committee / working group experiences.
  
  
  • Commitment to the Critical Incident Commander (CIC), Duty Officer (DO), and Public Order Commander (POC) roles, and actively participating in those functions as required.
  
  
  • Commitment to writing Disciplinary Authority (DA) decisions as assigned.
  
  
  
  

COMPETITION PROCESS - Competition Launch Date:  January 6/2026

 
Purpose

• This process will identify 2 candidates to fill upcoming vacancies at the Inspector rank through a fair and transparent selection process.  1 candidate will fill a vacant position in February 2026, and 1 candidate will fill a position at a future date to be determined. 


• In the event more vacancies arise prior to, during, or after this promotional process, the Chief Constable may consider utilizing the information collected through this selection process to identify additional candidates.

Eligibility

• This competition is open to all confirmed VicPD Staff Sergeants.  Candidates must be confirmed in the rank by the start date of the competition.

Administration

• The Director of Human Resources will be responsible for overseeing the Inspector competition process and will be a resource for the panel throughout the process.  The HR Director will also be available to provide each candidate with feedback after the completion of the competition.


• Regardless of the ranking and recommendations of the promotion panel members, all promotions within the Victoria Police Department remain at the discretion of the Chief Constable.

Process Details

• The panel will be comprised of the Chief Constable and two Deputy Chief Constables, who will review submissions and form the interview team.
  
  


• Stage 1:  Written Expression of Interest Submission
  
  
  
  
  
  • Cover Letter and Resume:  Interested and qualified Staff Sergeants who wish to be considered for this opportunity are encouraged to submit a written letter of intent and resume.  The cover letter and resume should outline how your experience, background, qualifications, knowledge, and skills relate to the core competencies, functions, and requirements of the Inspector position.
    
    
  
  
  • Development Plan:  Candidates who have been part of the Staff Sergeant Development Plan will also include an up-to-date plan document.  Recognizing that not all Staff Sergeants will be in the development program, in the absence of a formal development plan, a candidate may provide a personal development plan.  The plans will provide the panel with an opportunity to review the ongoing developmental work of the candidate in addition to their future developmental strategy.
    
    
  
  
  • The written expression of interest submission must be electronically submitted by January 20/2026 at 4:30pm via BambooHR.
    
    
  
  
  
  

• Stage 2:  Interview
  
  
  
  
  
  • The interview questions, which will be primarily behavioural based, will be provided to the candidates 30 minutes before the interview for review.
    
    
  
  
  • One-hour panel interviews will take place during the week of January 26/2026.  The successful candidates will be identified at the conclusion for promotion to the rank of Inspector.