A boost to financial reward and Government support will help fill Detectives roles, says Federation

11 October 2019

More needs to be done to incentivise people into becoming a Detective, Kent Police Federation has said.

More than 100 detective posts at the force need to be filled - whereas around 30 posts were vacant in 2017.

This matches the nationwide picture - forces in England and Wales are missing an estimated 5,000 investigators.

Les Bingham, Treasurer at Kent Police Federation, said there are now around 170 officers on the pathway to becoming detectives at the force, but that more needs to be done to incentivise people into the role.

Les said: “The status of being a detective has been eroded for quite a long time. There’s been a lack of support - people weren’t encouraged to become a detective, and detectives weren’t re-warded for the work that they do.”

A lack of financial reward and governmental support has also damaged the status of the role, Les said.

“We need to fix the financial problem because to become a detective many people take a pay cut. They lose the financial ability to cover their debts, and especially when you’ve got young people joining the service that are on £20,000+ a year and all of a sudden they’re not going to get their shift allowances, that is a problem.”

Senior managers can help support the role, Les said, who praised his Chief Constable Alan Pughsley who has a background in investigation. He also said investment in training has helped improve the situation in Kent. But he warned that direct entry is not necessarily the answer to filling the backlog.

He added: “As a detective, yes, you need to have the ability to put together a good case file and take it all the way to the end, but you still need to develop that ability to talk to people and if you’ve got youngsters coming in who’ve never done that in their life and all they’ve ever done is looked at a computer screen, and then all of a sudden they’ve got to go and take a statement from someone… Well, if you can’t talk to them, you’re not going to get the best out of them. That’s all part of it and it’s a range of skills that you develop through a range of learning that you get as a uniformed officer.

“But equally it works both ways because uniformed officers have to know the ability to be able to put together a case file to deal with it and do an effective job.”

Les was speaking at The Police Federation of England and Wales National Detectives' Forum (PFNDF) in Birmingham this week.