Recruitment drive on track

31 July 2020

The Force is making good progress with its Year 1 recruitment as part of the Government’s three-year programme to boost officer numbers nationwide by 20,000 over three years, says Hertfordshire Police Federation chair Geoff Bardell.

Newly released Home Office figures show the Force recruited 64 officers from October last year up until the end of June. It’s first year allocation was 91.

“Given the incredibly difficult times we have been all experiencing due to the pandemic, I think the Force is making steady progress with recruitment,” says Geoff.

“We appear to be on track to reach our first year target which is good news all round. The cuts police forces across England and Wales experienced during the years of austerity meant that our officers have fallen considerably over the last 10 years.

“These new recruits will help us provide the visible policing presence our communities want to see. We now also need to ensure that we retain our existing officers too as we don’t want a situation where as fast as we get new recruits in to the Force we lose the more experienced ones.”

Nationwide, 22 per cent of the 20,000 target for recruitment has been met, this marks the largest annual recruitment of officers since 2003/04.

Read the quarterly update.