Budget shortfalls leave officers overworked and exhausted

23 January 2026

Budget shortfalls mean that Norfolk police officers will be stretched even further, leading to overwork, exhaustion and a reduced service to the public, the Chair of Norfolk Police Federation has warned.

Andy Symonds was speaking on BBC Radio Norfolk, following news that the Chief Constable would be hiring fewer officers so he can meet Government neighbourhood policing targets. CC Paul Sanford said that the Home Office’s funding for ‘bobbies on the beat’ did not cover the cost of paying for them, and that he would have to cut back recruitment elsewhere.

Andy said he had sympathy for the Chief Constable and that he was “in a tough position that the Government has put him in”.

He added: “We've had 16 years of austerity and it continues, sadly – and it falls on the backs of the members I represent, the police officers that the community see when they're responding to their crime or detecting their crime. So this is another tough message from the Government that we're still in austerity.”

Andy told BBC Radio Norfolk: “I see it as if you're running a large department store, and they say: ‘Next year, you're running on £3 million less than your budget to provide the same service, the same staff, and have those excellent products on the shelf’.

“That isn't going to happen, because the store manager is going to say, ‘Well we can't cope with that, we're going to have to reduce the stuff on the shelves, we're going to have to reduce the people that are providing the service’.

“That's the same for policing: it means there's going to be less of a service. But there is an expectation from the community that we still provide that same service, we still turn up to those calls and detect those crimes.

“So it means that those cops who I represent are going to be stretched even further, and there are some red warning lights around the impact of expecting cops to continue doing more for less, and I'll give you some examples of that.

“Last year, one in nine cops took time off for mental health reasons – that’s 212 signed off sick for mental health reasons, compared to 173 in 2024.

“So that is a red warning light to say that cops are knackered, tired, under pressure from being stretched and stretched and stretched.”

Andy also revealed that 152,000 hours were owed to Norfolk police officers who had had their rest days cancelled: “That equates to 19,000 rest days in 2024 that are owed to Norfolk police officers, when they should have been off recuperating. And that is the consequence of these cuts.”

He was asked whether members of the public should expect a reduced service, and said: “The Chief Constable will make sure that we respond to emergency calls. But what it does mean is that some of the things that we are doing perhaps can't continue. And this is the difficult conversation that I think the Government has to have, and we as a Constabulary with our community: What do you want us to do and prioritise?”

Andy said there needed to be “stronger conversations” with partners such as social services, mental health services and the NHS, “for them to step up to the mark, to fill the gaps that we are filling and have done for a number of years”.

He added that there just weren’t enough officers to respond to demand and carry out all the tasks expected of them: “In England and Wales, we have 228 officers per 100,000 of population. Now you compare that to pretty much every other European country: France has 332 per 100,000, Germany has 298. We are the lowest of all the European nations. The average of a European nation is 357 cops per 100,000. We sit at 228. So the maths doesn’t work.”