'Too many good officers are leaving the service'

28 July 2023

Record numbers of police officers are quitting the service across England and Wales, according to new Home Office data.

The figures reveal a total of 4,668 officers resigned between April 2022 and March 2023.

This is the highest number since comparable records began 16 years ago and shows a 32 per cent increase on the 3,533 who left the service in 2021/22.

Data for Wales shows a total of 159 officers voluntarily resigned from the four forces  in the 12 months to last March.

A further 16 retired on medical grounds during the same period and 248 officers took normal retirement. 

Ten officers were dismissed, taking the total number of departures from the Welsh forces to 433.

Police Federation Welsh affairs lead Nicky Ryan said the figures were worrying but did not come as a surprise.

Nicky Ryan said the number of officers quitting their jobs came as no surprise

She said: “We are losing too many good, experienced officers and that is bad news for the police service but also bad news for the communities they serve.

“Our members have endured more than a decade of austerity, cuts and under-investment and many of them have decided enough’s enough and looked for new opportunities outside the service.

“Pay and conditions are among the main reasons our members give for quitting the police.

“We accepted a seven per cent rise this year after many years of low or non-existent increases but for many it has proved too little, too late.

“The settlement was still well below the rate of inflation and while that persists, we are always going to have trouble with officer retention.”

Nicky said the Police Uplift Programme which ended earlier this year after more than 20,000 new officers were recruited, did not provide a solution to the retention crisis.

“We welcome the arrival of the new recruits across all four Welsh forces but in reality they only replaced the officers that left the service over the last 10 years and we now have a very young, quite inexperienced frontline,” she said.

The number of officers leaving the service was highlighted as the Home Office hailed the success of the Police Uplift Programme which saw the recruitment of more than 20,000 officers across the country.

Revised Home Office figures showed there were 8,005 police officers serving in Wales as of 31 March.