Recruitment: Force just under Year 1 target

30 October 2020

The Force needs to recruit just 13 more officers to hit its first year allocation of new officers under the Government’s uplift plan.

Shortly after becoming Prime Minister last year, Boris Johnson announced plans to recruit a total of 20,000 new officers during a three-year uplift programme.

Derbyshire was given a Year 1 allocation of 85 new officers and an update from the Government yesterday revealed the Force had recruited 72 extra officers by the end of September this year.

“The Force is progressing well, particularly when you bear in mind that, due to the austerity measures, it had undertaken limited recruitment in recent years so it had to almost start from scratch and get recruitment and training teams set up,” says Tony Wetton, chair of Derbyshire Police Federation.

“These new recruits will be welcome additions to the Force and we now just have to hope that even when this uplift programme comes to an end the Government still invests in police officer recruitment so that forces can provide effective policing services for the communities they serve.”

National Federation chair John Apter, responding to the Government’s update on the uplift, said more needs to be done to attract new police recruits with previous life experience and those from military or public sector backgrounds.

He explained: “To have a healthy mix of new recruits with life experience is good for policing and essential. We will continue to raise this point with the Home Office. As the programme continues, it is also vital for the service to be more representative and reflect the communities we serve. More needs to be done to recruit officers from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds.

“While good progress has been made, we need to continue to do all we can to ensure policing is an attractive profession for all members of the communities we serve.”