Responding to this week's announcement from the Prime Minister on restoring neighbourhood policing, Police Federation of England and Wales Acting Deputy National Chair Brian Booth said: “We have always championed neighbourhood policing as it helps build confidence and relationships in communities and helps gather information to keep the public safe, yet for many years it has been massively undervalued, and decimated.
“However, we know from a number of police chief officers they are struggling to deal with the lack of real term increased funding in policing.
"The reality is multi-million-pound budget cuts across forces are being made, with some having to making difficult choices about what units to keep and what areas of work must be cut, which includes job losses.
“This, coupled with the fact police officers are leaving in their droves, does not bode well when it comes to achieving a target of 13,000 more officers in neighbourhood policing roles by 2029, in a way that is fair and not a postcode lottery.
“According to official data, the leaver rate for police officer voluntary resignations in the year ending 31 March 2024, at 3.4 per cent, is the highest rate on record. We know from our annual Pay and Morale Survey poor pay, working conditions and the dangers of the job are always the top reasons for them exiting the service.
“In addition, thousands of police officer hours are also wasted because of bureaucracy, with officers stuck behind desks redacting case files at the pre-charge stage, when they could be out in the community preventing and tackling crime.
“As part of our #SimplifyDG6 campaign, our legally approved amendment to data protection laws, as part of the Data (Use and Access) Bill, would alleviate this significant workload pressure.
"Our very conservative estimate is that by adopting the amendment, the Government will be able to save around £18,071,900.00 of taxpayers’ money annually, and more importantly, free up over 770,000 officer hours which can be used in frontline policing duties to make our streets safer.”
