The court of the selective trial for the officers of the Municipal Police of Valladolid has invalidated one of the exercises of the entrance exam for military service. This is the second point of the test carried out on Wednesday, in a competition in which agents were sought to fill 13 positions in the armed institution. The City Council (PP and Vox) confirmed that the application was exactly the same as the one prepared by an opposition preparation academy last August and announced that the new exercise will be agreed in the near future and will be repeated to all candidates applying for those city security posts.
“The decision was adopted unanimously after verifying that part of the exposition of the practical case raised in this exercise literally coincided with the material prepared by an opposition preparation academy, released last August”, claims the Council in a note, in which it underlines that this “could be harmful to equal opportunities between candidates”.
The municipal administration specified that the canceled part is the second section of the so-called “finding test”. The opposition is made up of several parties. It starts first with a physical fitness challenge for candidates and then with the theoretical knowledge part, which consists of two areas: a unique “test-like questionnaire”, which only those who pass can move on to the next stage, and a practical case in which potential police officers have to decide how they would react to a certain scenario while carrying out their work.
It was precisely this first part of the theoretical test that took place on Wednesday and where these “irregularities” were detected. The opposition selection body noticed a few hours after the test was carried out that one point was practically identical to an exercise proposed by an academy in Valladolid, where several interested in accessing those public places were trained, including nine free shifts, three mobility shifts and one reserve shift for troops and sailors.
The qualified tribunal, according to a statement from the Municipality of Valladolid, “confirmed that the envelopes with the exercises carried out have not been opened and remain kept, signed and sealed, thus guaranteeing the integrity of the process”. “In order to preserve the principles of equality, merit and ability, the selection body has agreed to call the candidates again for the repetition of the second exercise in the near future”, reads the company’s message, dates not currently known and which will be agreed in a meeting scheduled for Monday 24 November. No council position statement offered any declarations or explanations beyond the official statement.
The Comisiones Obreras union reacted with another press release expressing “its concern over what appear to be possible irregularities in the selection process to fill 13 Municipal Police posts in the Valladolid City Council”. CC OO asked the government coalition for explanations for this fact “which raises serious doubts about the transparency and cleanliness of the process”.
The union regrets that episodes like these generate “great discomfort” among opponents “who put their commitment and dedication into play in a process that must be impartial and fair”. “The suspicion that a practical exercise may have been leaked or linked to a private academy calls into question the integrity of the entire process,” they say.
