18 March 2024

Dorset Police Officers are “between a rock and a hard place” trying to keep up with demand.

Dorset Police officers are “between a rock and a hard place” trying to keep up with demand but also needing to look after their health, Dorset Police Federation has said.

Federation Chair James Dimmack was speaking after the Deputy National Federation Chair Tiff Lynch said forces needed to ensure that officers weren’t working excessive amounts of overtime.

Dorset Police had the highest rates of sickness in the country, said James, and he linked that with rising demands on policing.

He said: “We have to look after our staff. It’s a really sad statistic that, pro rata, Dorset policing has the most sickness in the country. We are a very good force if you look at the figures, but that clearly comes at a cost. So we have to look after officers, we have to strike a balance, but we also have to police the streets and provide a service to the public.”

Officers had also been relying on overtime payments during the cost of living crisis, James said: “Officers have been relying on overtime for some time. We’ve been surviving on the back of overtime.”

But he added that forces were struggling to pay overtime in the midst of ever-decreasing police budgets.

He said: “We’re in times when forces have to make cuts, they have to live within their budgets, which are ever decreasing, to fit the resource that they are expected to meet.

“The chief officers are working really hard to try to reduce that demand, and I take my hat off to them. I’m really hopeful that things like Right Person, Right Care and process evolution will deliver the reduction in impact in resource that we hope for. But we can’t guarantee that.

“We’re between a rock and a hard place, because all of our members out there want to do a good job and they will not let the public down. But at what cost?”