Force ahead in recruitment drive
4 May 2022
The chair of West Midlands Police Federation has welcomed new Government figures that show the Force is ahead of schedule in its drive to recruit more officers.
But Rich Cooke said a lot of care needs to be taken to ensure the new officers are properly trained, developed and retained.
He was speaking after new Home Office statistics show that West Midlands Police now has 7,708 officers, up from 6,691 at the start of the Government’s high-profile Uplift programme. That’s an increase of 1,017 officers.
West Midlands Police was allocated 730 officers in the first two years of the programme, with a final allocation of 1,218 by March 2023, which means the Force has already recruited 83 per cent of its target allocation.
Rich said: “The Force is recruiting at a break-neck pace and this has placed unprecedented challenges on our Learning and Development staff, on top of the unique problems presented by the pandemic.
“It’s great to have so many new officers on board at a time when we’re facing such pressure in policing. We welcome them all.
“However, we need to ensure that while we continue to recruit, we also ensure we are not compromising standards, and important selection procedures such as fitness testing, medicals, drug testing, and vetting are rigorous. If not, we may simply store up problems for the future.
“In addition, we have to do more to encourage and reward our tutor constables who face an increasing burden in addition to managing their own often stressful workloads. Tutor to student ratios are simply too high. Recruits deserve one to one support - not one to five as in some cases I’ve heard of.”
Nationally, there were 142,526 police officers in England and Wales as at 31 March. That’s an increase of 13,576 towards the target of 20,000 extra officers by March 2023.
Rich said the Uplift programme was only part of the solution in increasing police numbers, and called on the Government to improve pay and conditions for officers, as well as the infrastructure of police stations which he says continue to face the axe under a failing model of ever increasing centralisation.
“So, while the uplift in police numbers is welcome, it’s only part of the solution in terms of improving the policing of our communities.
“After years of real term pay cuts, the cost of living crisis is hitting our members hard. We need the Government to give officers a decent pay increase if we’re to ensure we have the best people for the job,” he added.
