Many promises have been made, we now need action

15 January 2020

Polfed

Warnings from the National Chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales about the long-term funding of the police service have received widespread media coverage today.

National Chair John Apter has undertaken a series of broadcast interviews following a story he did with the Press Association’s Home Affairs Correspondent Flora Thompson.

The PA coverage focused on PFEW’s submission to the Strategic Review of Policing by The Police Foundation.

Mr Apter revealed that an estimated half a million applications would be needed to fill almost 55,000 police officer posts in order to fulfil the Government’s pledge to boost the service by 20,000.

He also called on ministers to deliver on recent promises and rewrite funding rules by introducing at least a 10-year strategy for budgets to allow forces to properly plan for the future - instead of sticking to the current annual review.

Speaking on Sky News to presenter Kay Burley, he said: “Many promises have been made, we now need that to be turned into action.”

The entire interview is available via our YouTube channel.

The startling number of applications required to make the government’s promise a reality was based on evidence-based work carried out by the Federation’s highly respected Research and Policy Support department, and will form part of the Police Federation’s forthcoming annual submission to the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB).

They calculate it will take around one in every 170 people in in England and Wales to fill the 53,000 vacancies required to make the 20,000 uplift a reality - one person in every 17 in the population aged 18-30. 

The peer-respected Research and Policy Support department, which is based in at PFEW’s headquarters in Leatherhead, plays a vital part in providing strategically important evidence to help achieve the best pay and conditions for members.

* The National Chair also featured heavily on the Daily Mail website MailOnline (Lack of government action on police funding `will be unforgivable´), Good Morning Britain, ITV News (‘unforgivable” if politicians fail to act on “desperately needed” long-term funding’), and dozens of other UK news outlets.