Federation says recruitment and retention are big concerns for Roads Policing

30 January 2020

THE recruitment and retention of road specialist officers remains a concern in policing, Essex Police Federation has said.

Federation OPC Lead Steve Martin said at the recent Roads Policing Conference in Kenilworth that issues surrounded being able to get younger officers in particular into the specialist unit.

Length of service restrictions are stopping some officers from applying, he said.

“The recruitment and retention of officers is a big issue.”

“We’re currently advertising for our RPU for an uplift. Hopefully we should be on track to get the numbers we need.

“There are inherent problems with releasing officers that are less experienced, younger in service, away from their LPAs to come onto the roads policing department, but if we can get those in then the departments will build,” he said.

“We also struggle with pursuit tactical advisors and with just TPac trained officers in general. That again is down to staffing.

“When you’ve got a small training department that’s trying to deliver the training, build the driver training for everybody, there are going to be courses that suffer.

“Obviously that then has a knock-on effect in terms of how we can respond to pursuits in that specific area. But hopefully in the future that will change.”

Despite the issues, roads policing is still seen as an exciting option for officers wanting to broaden their career, Steve said.

“There are officers that still want to be roads policing officers.

“However, there are internal politics which probably stop it from happening. I know of several officers who would love to do the role, however because of their length of service they can’t apply when the vacancies come out.

“So, you’re then left with a small pool of officers that can apply but have obviously decided to go with a different route in their policing career. I don’t think it’s not an attractive role.”