Officers quitting police service in record numbers

26 July 2023

Record numbers of police officers are quitting their jobs across England and Wales, according to new figures from the Home Office.

The data shows a total of 4,668 officers left the service through voluntary resignation between April 2022 and March 2023.

This is the highest number since comparable records began 16 years ago and shows a 32 per cent increase on the 3,533 who left the service in 2021/22.

Figures for Derbyshire Police reveal 71 officers quit the Force in the 12 months to  last March.

A further nine retired on medical grounds during the same period and 73 took normal retirement - broadly in line with previous years - and one officer was dismissed.

Seven officers transferred to another force although the figures show 26 joined Derbyshire Police from other forces.

The Home Office said the total number of leavers from the Force was 161.

Record numbers of police officers are walking away from the service

Derbyshire Police Federation chair Tony Wetton said the figures made sobering reading but did not come as a surprise.

He said: “We have been warning for many years that our members were becoming disillusioned over pay and conditions, low morale, heavy workload and increasing demands but the Government chose to ignore those warnings and continued paying lip service to the police service.

“That failure to act in any meaningful way has resulted in record numbers of experienced police officers leaving the service and that can only have a negative impact on the people in the communities they serve.

“The Police Uplift Programme helped bring in new recruits and we welcomed that but it cannot disguise the fact that so many of our members decided policing was no longer for them and sought employment elsewhere.

“I think that is a sad and worrying reflection on the state of the police service and yet more proof that things have got to change.”

Revised Home Office figures show Derbyshire Police had a total of 2,140 officers as of March 31 compared with 1,827 when the uplift campaign began in 2019.

The Force took on 351 new recruits during that period, more than its Government-set allocation of an extra 283 officers.