The deadline is fast approaching for the role of chief constable.

Current Chief Constable Gary Roberts is due to step down once a replacement is found after serving in the job since 2013.

According to the police, the plans is for there to be a ’phased handover’ between him and the new chief constable and the ’exact time scales are yet to be decided’.

According to the Department of Home Affairs, the chief creates a vision and set direction and culture that ’builds public and organisational confidence and trust, and enables the delivery of a professional, effective and efficient policing service’.

The role itself is 40 hours per week at a salary of £146,469 a year.

He responds to political scrutiny where necessary and speaks on matters of policing policy and operations.

Last year, the hunt for a deputy chief constable was abandoned after the Department of Home Affairs said it would not be interviewing any applicants for the position.

DHA chief executive officer Dan Davies told the Manx Independent in September 2021 that a number of applicants had been considered, but the Chief Constable had decided ’not to proceed to interview stage at this point in the process’, and the department was ’looking at considering our options for [the] next steps now’.

Mr Davies said that with the ’hard deadline’ of Mr Roberts retiring in 2022, the department would make sure the post is ’hopefully filled in good time’.

The police have not had a deputy chief constable since Mr Roberts stepped up to chief constable. The plan had been for him to appoint a deputy to shadow him in the year up to him leaving his post. The pandemic had delayed that process.

Mr Roberts was the first chief constable for the island who had served solely as an Isle of Man officer for all his service.

The closing date for this job is January 16.