Fed warns rising officer numbers 'not an instant solution'

19 April 2023

Hertfordshire Police Federation chair Luke Mitchell has warned officer retention remained a major issue despite predictions that new figures will show police numbers across England and Wales have reached the highest levels in history.

Policing minister Chris Philp told GMB he was confident that records would be broken when the latest data is published on 26 April.

He said: “There is going to be an announcement next week and I am confident it will show that we will have record numbers of police - more police than we have ever had at any point in the history of England and Wales.

“The previous high  point was in March 2010 when there were about 145,000 police officers in England and Wales and I am expectantly confident that when the figures are published next week we will have comfortably exceeded that previous high point.”

County Police and Crime Commissioner David Lloyd said Hertfordshire Police was on target to have more than 2,350 officers in post by the end of the month.

Luke welcomed the increase but warned it did not provide an instant solution to the policing crisis.

He said: “I would give a cautious response to the minister's announcement and would like to manage public expectations.

“Vast amount of our new officers are still in training and we have a complete lack of experience, not just on the frontline but also within our investigation teams, which means while these officers learning, things will take longer.

"Ensuring officers are properly trained in driving, carrying Taser and other important aspects of policing will be a real challenge.”

Luke also said too many officers were still looking to leave the Force.

He said: “The retention crisis at Hertfordshire Police is well documented and we can’t ignore the fact that our own pay and morale survey found that nearly one in four of our members wanted to quit the Force within the next two years.

“There are a number of reasons behind that and, in fairness, the Force does what it can in terms of pay and the South East Allowance but measures have to be taken to make working here a more attractive proposition.” 

Mr Philp has refused to speculate on the precise figure expected to be unveiled next week but insisted the number of officers in England and Wales would be “some margin higher, some thousands higher”. 

The minister blamed previous administrations when confronted with evidence that police numbers went down by more than 20,000 between 2010 and 2017 when, according to the Home Office, there were just 121,929 officers.

Mr Philp said: “The reason police officer numbers fell in the years immediately after 2010 - and there were spending constraints in other public services as well  - is because the outgoing Labour government left the country essentially bankrupt and George Osborne had to take difficult decisions to put it back in order.

“Since we have managed to get the economy into better shape, we have been able to fund additional police officers to make up for not just those who were unfortunately reduced, but we are going to go beyond that and have more officers than we had in 2010.”