South East police forces react with fury to Metropolitan Police's £5,000 offer for officers to jump ship to the London force

1 June 2022

Police forces in the South East of England have reacted with fury after the Metropolitan Police offered experienced officers from other areas a £5,000 bonus to jump ship and join the London force.

Police and Crime Commissioners and Police Federations accused the Metropolitan Police of trying to “poach police officers” by offering the cash bung.

The £5,000 ‘one off cash bonus’, the Metropolitan Police said, would be on top ‘our existing package of benefits to encourage more people to become a police constable’… such as London weighting.

Mike Reed, Chair of the City of London Police Federation, was unimpressed by the move and called for all police officers to receive better pay.

He said: “As a police force in the South East the decision by the Metropolitan Police to offer incentives to transfer is nothing short of desperate. £5,000 is the equivalent of 4 months of take home pay for some officers so it will be no surprise if some officers take up the Metropolitan Police on the offer.

“But the question that needs to be asked is why are the Metropolitan Police suddenly so desperate to use hard pressed budgets in this way? The answer is the Government’s ‘uplift’ and the election promise of 20,000 ‘extra’ police officers.

“This number has never been achievable and now we are seeing police forces about to enter a competition to attract numbers so they are not financially penalised by the same Government that set the target

“The Metropolitan Police might be able to afford this and indeed to swallow the costs of the incentives so as not to lose even more but other forces will just not be able to. The pool of candidates is not limitless.

“Confidence is low in policing in at present and the numbers game over careful, selection, training and vetting is not the way to go. The real losers in this will be the county forces in the South East. It will be in places like this that will lose officer numbers as officers chase the wage that reflects their role and gives them a better standard of living.

“What the Government should be doing is paying Police Officers a wage that attracts officers to apply in decent numbers to avoid what could become a policing cattle market.”