Policing – recruitment and experience – the effect of the decade+ of austerity

‘A policeman’s lot is not a happy one,’ so comic opera writers Gilbert and Sullivan told us. Recently published Government figures confirm this to be the case, with an alarming increase in the number of officers resigning across England and Wales. Resignations are up by 72%, from 1,996 in 2021 to 3,433 in 2022; they now account for 42% of all police leavers, compared to 33% in the previous year.

In taking a longer-term view, in 2012 there were 1,158 resignations, accounting for just 18% of all leavers. In just ten years, resignations have increased by 196%. This reflects a massive loss in financial terms when it comes to training.

It is no coincidence that this deterioration coincides with the years of austerity when police officer and support staff numbers were slashed.

The Police Federation recently surveyed members regarding Pay and Morale with 36,669 officers responding. Police Officers are prohibited from joining a trade union, and the Federation is a staff association that represents officers from the rank of Constable to Chief Inspector.

The findings of the survey present a bleak picture:

• 95% of respondents said their treatment by the Government harmed their morale;
• 87% said the same about pay;
• 87% of respondents felt that they were ‘worse off’ financially than they were five years ago;
• 87% of respondents feel that morale within the force is currently ‘low’ or ‘very low’;
• 18% of respondents told us that they had the intention to resign from the Police service either ‘within the next two years’ or ‘as soon as [they] can’;
• 66% of respondents said that over the last 12 months, their workload has been ‘too high’ or ‘much too high’;
• 88% said that they do not feel that there are enough officers to meet the demands of their team or unit.

The Chair of the Police Federation commented, “We’ve been saying repeatedly to the Government, it’s because of low morale, high fatigue, degraded levels of pay, less favourable pensions and working conditions that have changed significantly over the last ten years. It’s not the job that it used to be, and we don’t have the right to resort to industrial action to get the Government to hear us.”

Police pay is subject to review by the independent Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB). There is good reason to question their independence. They are appointed by the Government and must take into account the Government’s overall public expenditure policies, including the need to control public spending.

In understanding how the police pay has fared the starting pay of a Police Constable from 1 April 2013 was between £19,000 and £22,000, depending on qualifications, experience and local recruitment needs.  The starting pay of a Police Constable in November 2022 was £23,556.

During the same period, the cost of living increased by 15%. The Met’s Commissioner has this week expressed concerns regarding officers resorting to using food banks. He has referred to a real-terms pay cut of 14% over the past decade.

This has caused the haemorrhaging of experience within the police, and there has been a real impact on local policing in Wiltshire.

In early 2022 His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Police noted, “Eighty per cent of officers in community policing teams, for example, have less than six years’ service, and half are student officers with fewer than two years’ service. Our inspection activity found that student officers are often being mentored and supported by inexperienced colleagues.”

More recently the Inspectorate commented on how the lack of experience had adversely impacted on child protection in Wiltshire.

The newly appointed Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police, Catherine Roper, is taking over an organisation that is challenged when it comes to performance. In November 2022, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Police followed reviewed progress against the recommendations arising from the assessment completed earlier in 2022.

The Inspectorate stated, “We found that the force had made progress against some of the causes of concern recommendations that we focused on in this revisit. But some of the improvements were small, and there was a deterioration in some areas.” The Inspectorate specifically expressed concerns regarding the investigation of crime.

There is a broader context to this picture when taking into account the current strikes within the NHS. The complaints expressed by the Police Federation echo the views being expressed by striking nurses and paramedics. There is a real sense of despair within our public services, which must be addressed.

There is no easy solution to these challenges. We are saddled with a Victorian model for policing with forty three Chief Constables and Forces across England and Wales. Just like the NHS, there is a strong argument to support reform in how policing is structured along with the pay and conditions of our police officers and support staff.