South East police forces react with fury to Metropolitan Police's £5,000 offer for officers to jump ship to the London force

1 June 2022

Police forces in the South East of England have reacted with fury after the Metropolitan Police offered experienced officers from other areas a £5,000 bonus to jump ship and join the London force.

Police and Crime Commissioners accused the Metropolitan Police of trying to “poach police officers” by offering the cash bung.

The £5,000 ‘one off cash bonus’, the Metropolitan Police said, would be on top ‘our existing package of benefits to encourage more people to become a police constable’… such as London weighting.

Neil Mennie, Chair of Kent Police Federation, said all police officers across the country needed to be paid fairly – and forces and PCCs should be thinking about how they can incentivise officers to stay in their current forces.

He said: “Migration to the Met is not a new issue and is something that has gone on for years. Those of us who have been around a few years will remember ‘Operation Shield’ where the solution was to push officers up one division in a Northerly direction.

“This type of incentive however is a new ‘high’ in trying to poach specialist and experienced officers from other forces. Although it’s a ‘limited time offer’ if successful I doubt we have seen the last of it.

“There has been a rush to criticise the Met and claim foul but perhaps the question should be more about how we can incentivise people to stay. Ultimately that has to involve pay and conditions not helped by a 0% pay rise last time out.

“Not everyone is planning to rush to the Met and it depends on a heap of other factors about family and quality of life. The streets of London may not be paved with Gold but with this incentive plus London waiting and competitive travel arrangements for some it’s a no brainer.

“I along with many others are happy to live and work as Kent Police Officers but a few will be tempted and quite frankly it’s hard to blame them.”

Kent PCC Matthew Scott labelled the strategy "selfish", and says it puts pressure on Kent Police to "fill the gap".

He said: "Because the Met Police and the Mayor of London are failing to meet their recruitment targets they're seeking to take officers from other police forces with the promise of a welcome bonus.

"I want police officers to be better paid and I've always campaigned for that, but this is a problem for us because they will take our experienced officers away at a time when we're trying to recruit more on the promise of a payment.

"It causes a number of risks and concerns around how we'll be able to get those numbers back in and ultimately it raises questions about oversight of the Metropolitan Police by the Mayor that they've been allowed to carry on with this problem.

"I'm working with MPs and we'll be lobbying to Government to make sure that we have a level playing field.”