Cumbria Police Federation on retention and recruitment crisis in policing

25 April 2025

“We are not going to recruit our way out of the current crisis in policing”, Cumbria Police Federation has said, as the Government outlined plans to increase the number of neighbourhood police officers.

The Prime Minister has announced plans to "put neighbourhood bobbies back on the beat” and end years of “postcode lottery”. Its Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee aims to put 13,000 more officers into neighbourhood policing roles by 2029, an increase of more than 50%.

The Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) welcomed this plan, but pointed out that forces were currently making multi-million pound budget cuts and that “police officers were leaving in their droves”.

The leaver rate for police officer voluntary resignations is at 3.4%, the highest rate on record. PFEW says that poor pay, working conditions and the dangers of the job are the top reasons for people leaving the service.

Ed Russell, Chair of Cumbria Police Federation, said: “I fully support the Prime Minister’s drive to increase neighbourhood police within our communities, but we are not going to recruit our way out of the current crisis in policing. Unless we concentrate on conditions and retention, we’re throwing public money on a bonfire.

“Cumbria Police alone has lost staggering numbers of officers over the past two years, with hundreds of years’ worth of policing experience walking out of the door. The Government needs to focus first on stabilising the current workforce before ploughing further investment into mass recruitment drives.”

Ed said that the Government needed to engage with the national Federation on matters of pay and conditions and “put long-overdue reforms in place to ensure that officers are afforded the rights and entitlements that properly compensate them for the dangers of modern policing”.

He added: “Once attrition is under control we can focus on other matters, but the number-one priority right now must be to support and retain those officers who are still putting on their boots every day.”