Force exceeds its target for Police Uplift Programme

27 April 2023

Pete Nightingale, secretary of West Mercia Police Federation.

West Mercia Police has exceeded its target of recruiting new officers under the Government’s Police Uplift Programme by six per cent, according to new figures from the Home Office.

The Force was given an allocation of an extra 311 officers when the programme was launched in 2019 but exceeded that figure by 19 by bringing in a total of 330 new recruits.

It now has 2,494 officers compared with 2,164 when the uplift campaign began.

The figure is also higher than the 2010 headcount which stood at 2,349 ahead of a decade of funding cuts which saw officer numbers slump to 1,901 by March 2019.

West Mercia Police Federation secretary Pete Nightingale welcomed the increase but called on the Force and the Government to make a commitment to invest in training the new recruits and making sure they had access to the proper resources and equipment.

He said: “This is a step in the right direction and we are pleased to see an improvement in officer numbers after so many years of reductions in the workforce.

“But resources were also cut throughout that period of austerity and it is important that we now see an increase in spending on uniform, equipment and vehicles so our new officers can carry out their jobs efficiently and effectively.

“The Force has to make sure West Mercia Police is an attractive place to work and that means fair pay and conditions and making our members feel valued and respected.

“It also means appropriate pay rises for all officers - the Police Federation is calling for 17 per cent - because otherwise they will simply leave the service for better paid jobs elsewhere.”

The latest Home Office figures show that a total of 20,951 extra recruits have joined the service across England and Wales under the Police Uplift Programme and the only Force that failed to meet its target was the Met.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Twitter: “In 2019 we promised to recruit 20,000 additional police officers in England and Wales to make our streets safer and protect communities. Today, I’m pleased to say we have delivered that promise.”

Home Secretary Suella Braverman described it as a “historic moment for our country”.

She said: “We should be immensely proud of what we’ve achieved in the last few years.

“Many said we couldn’t do it but this is a police success, a Home Office success and a Conservative Government success.”

She denied that policing was the “failure of austerity” and insisted the new recruitment figures were a success.

Asked whether it was fair to say that cuts to the police service in previous years had created problems across policing, she replied: “No. Since 2010, we see that overall crime has fallen. “When you take out fraud and online crime, it’s almost 50 per cent lower than it was in 2010.”