Federation responds to State of Policing Report

19 September 2025

Federation responds to State of Policing Report

“As a police force, we are struggling and creaking and being pulled in every direction,” the Chair of Leicestershire Police Federation said, in response to the new State of Policing Report.

In the report, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Andy Cooke said that Government reforms need to be properly funded or risk falling short. The report highlights the unmanageable investigative workloads, the daily risk of violence against officers, and the fact that 90% of funding for police treatment centres comes directly from officers’ own pockets rather than from Government or forces.

The Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) responded that the Government and policing leaders must “finally deliver the Police Covenant in full, properly fund and mandate welfare provision, and put officer care at the heart of reform”.

Andy Spence, Chair of Leicestershire Police Federation, said: “This is absolutely everything that we’ve been saying. We have got a really young workforce. Half of the police officers in the country have less than 10 years’ experience in the police. We have got a lack of resilience.

“Coupled with that, there is an alarmingly high number of assaults on police officers. And we’ve got a workload that changes constantly, with the Government introducing new laws and then
telling us what to target.

“We have got politics and bureaucracy creeping into the police every which way, and HMIC deciding on what it’s going to measure the police force on all the time. It is absolutely no wonder that, as a police force, we are struggling and creaking and being pulled in every direction, while all the time good, hard-working cops are trying to do this without politics, without fear or favour – and wanting to do the very best that they can.

“But they are hampered by red tape, they are hampered by officer sickness, by assaults and by lengthy misconduct investigations that take police officers off the streets.”

Tiff Lynch, PFEW National Chair, said that the issues raised in the report were “disturbing and shaming”. She said: "In this context, it is easy to understand why many officers have simply copped enough.”