Officers leaving police service in record numbers
27 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.
The data shows 178 officers resigned from West Midlands Police in the 12 months to last March.
A further 30 retired on medical grounds during the same period and 228 took normal retirement.
Some 67 officers transferred to other forces while eight were dismissed, taking the total number of departures for the year to 511.
West Midlands Police Federation chair Rich Cooke said the figures presented a serious challenge for policing as a whole but came as no surprise.
Rich Cooke said the record number of officers leaving the service was no surprise
He said: “More and more of our members are deciding enough’s enough and leaving the Force for pastures new. Who can blame them?
“We have been warning of a retention crisis in policing for many years now but our warnings and the core problems have not been addressed.
“This record number of leavers is one of the consequences we predicted when the programme of police cuts began more than 10 years ago but was dismissed as scaremongering.
“We are losing too many good, experienced officers and nothing is being done to stop it and that is bound to have an impact on policing in the communities they serve.
“The Police Uplift Programme brought in new recruits and we welcomed that but in reality, the new officers are in many places, simply replacing those who have left and the chasm in skills is not easily bridged. It takes years and even longer when those experts who would have trained them have gone!”
Rich said pay and conditions was still the main reason behind most of the departures.
He said: “The seven per cent pay rise this year was better than in all recent years but it still pushed the real value of our pay downward, just not by as much.
“In challenging economic times police officers are always amongst the first to accept relative pay restraint for the national good. However, it wears thin when you’ve been told that year on year for over a decade.
“Of course, one of the biggest factors influencing officers to leave the job is the reform of our pensions (deferred pay) in 2015.
“The pension is now far less attractive and only fully accessible later on. Naturally, this is changing the choices colleagues make to the detriment of the service. It’s all very well saying hang on for another five years for a decent pension, but ten or fifteen? – ‘No thanks, I'll take what I can and get out ASAP’.”
“That’s the entirely rational choice many are now taking, especially those older colleagues who joined on the 1987 scheme and have reached the age of 50 and those younger in service who felt they couldn’t afford to join the pension.
“There is less incentive to remain in service and longer service is not incentivised in the pay scales as it used to be.”
Record numbers of officers are turning their backs on the police service
Rich said the existing Police Remuneration Review Body combined with fewer employment rights than most workers meant police officers felt more powerless to change anything than ever before.
He said: “It’s why we must now force the issue of industrial rights for police up the political agenda with the ballot which the Police Federation must deliver on and quickly.
“We simply ask for negotiation rights: a seat at the table to decide our pay. But if that simple, reasonable request continues to be ignored by major political parties then we have no other option but to pursue each and every avenue we possibly can.
“On top of this we have senior officers working hard with the Home Office to further undermine the confidence of officers that they will get a fair hearing if accused as virtually all of us are at some point in our careers, denuding our rights to a fair, independently chaired hearing if our job is threatened, and worse still providing themselves with a ‘second bite of the cherry’ through the vetting process if they didn’t get the ‘right’ result first time.
“We have political leaders who with regard to policing appear simply buffeted by social media, and transient, partially factual stories with little regard for principles such as innocent until proven guilty.
“We yearn for leaders with a spine who will back the vast majority of outstanding public servants in our ranks, but they sadly seem few and far between.
“Our members deserve better. They work incredibly hard in very challenging circumstances and keep our communities safe and secure.
“They should be treated with dignity and respect and the sacrifices they make and the risks they take should be properly recognised.”
The departures were highlighted in figures released by the Home Office as it hailed the success of the Police Uplift Programme which saw the recruitment of more than 20,000 officers across the country.
West Midlands Police was told to take on an extra 1,218 officers when the Government launched its uplift programme in 2019 but has exceeded that figure by 158 and brought in a total of 1,376 new recruits.
The latest revised figures show the Force had a total of 7,954 officers as of March 31.
