Fed chair says the Home Secretary’s numbers simply do not add up

30 August 2023

“The numbers don’t add up,” said West Mercia Police Federation chair Barry Horton after the Home Secretary insisted forces must investigate all thefts as part of a new crime crackdown.

Suella Braverman said that following the Uplift programme, which aimed to recruit 20,000 officers and restore numbers to 2010 levels, forces now have the resources to pursue all “reasonable lines of inquiry”.

But Barry said officers were overworked, understaffed and faced barriers to their every day work.

He said: “Of course our members want to investigate every crime, go after criminals and get them off our streets, and support the victims of crime.

“That’s the whole point of being a police officer and the reason we joined the service.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

“However, what the Home Secretary is saying, the numbers simply don’t add up.

“The Conservative Government reduced police officer numbers by 20,000 after 2010, and we lost thousands of support staff and infrastructure as well as frontline experience.

“Since 2010, the population has increased, the crime rate has risen and the types of crime are more complex to investigate.

“The demand on officers now is immense.”

Barry said the issues around data protection legislation and disclosure guidance - known as DG6 - were taking up valuable police time and resources.

“The disclosure issues with DG6 have created so much work for police officers it means they spend hours upon hours behind their desks and not patrolling the streets,” he said. “It’s farcical.

“Of course our members would rather be on the streets catching criminals rather than wading through paperwork, but that’s the situation we find ourselves in.

“The Government have simply reaped what they have sowed with austerity and a decade of cuts and underinvestment.

“But when we as a Federation said that cuts would have drastic consequences, a former Home Secretary accused us of crying wolf, but we were simply telling it as it is.”

Barry added: “What we need now is sustained investment in the service, the people and the infrastructure, so we can deliver the service that we and the public want to see.

“We need the Government to listen to us and to work with us to remove the red tape that wastes so many officer hours each day.”