The Government announced that the 20,000 police officers target was reached, however wider problems in the criminal justice sector need addressing, according to the Institute for Government.

The Institute for Government, a leading think tank working to make government more effective, commented on the recruitment of 20,000 police officers through Police Uplift programme.

In its comment, the Institute stated that the programme was ambitious, with a manifesto commitment by the government to boost the number of police officers by 20,000 by March 2023.

The government succeeded in recruiting an additional 20,952 officers, however retention and vetting problems remain, according to the Institute.

Retention challenges in the face of voluntary resignations

According to the government figures, the number of voluntary resignations from the police service in England and Wales has increased by 72%, from 1,996 in 2021 to 3,433 in 2022.

The reasons for voluntary resignations were studied by the researchers at the University of Portsmouth and the findings shown that “officers are not resigning due to the often challenging and stressful occupational role of being a police officer but rather because of internal, organisational issues.”

The Institute also pointed out: “The government may yet struggle to retain these officers as increasing numbers are exiting the service; 2021/22 saw the highest rate of voluntary resignations since at least 2015.

“This appears to be driven by low morale, pay dissatisfaction and ‘how the police are treated by the government’.”

Moreover, “as forces examine historic allegations against officers – 1,131 in the Met Police in the last decade – more officers may leave the forces due to misconduct.”

The Institute said: “The stated benefits of the uplift programme relied on retaining an additional 20,000 officers up to 2029/30. But given retention problems, the government will likely need to continue with enhanced levels of recruitment if it wishes to retain current officer levels.”

Pressure on the vetting system

As 46,505 police officers have been recruited since November 2019, which represents 31% of the overall workforce, the scale and speed of recruitment “has put undue pressure on the vetting system,” according to the Institute.

The police inspectorate’s (HMIC) inspection report also warned about the speed and size of the Police Uplift programme: “The size and speed of this programme carry risks that, if standards of recruitment practice (including vetting) are not high enough, some applicants who are unfit to serve as police officers may be recruited.”

Gaps remain in specialist skills

“Forces still face gaps in specialist skills in areas like digital forensics and accredited detectives,” the Institute said. “And the volume of new staff has placed an “operational burden” on existing staff, taking up 50% of more senior officers’ time while new recruits are trained up.”

The Institute added: “The emphasis on officer numbers above all else has reduced chief constables’ flexibility and may undermine efforts to modernise workforces by, for example, making greater use of civilian staff. The police inspectorate has raised concerns that forces may resort to replacing back-office roles with highly trained officers.”

Therefore, the opinion is that focusing only on the quantity of police officers may cause the force to sacrifice on quality.

The Institute also stated: “There is a record backlog of almost 62,800 cases in the criminal courts (almost 90,000 when factoring in the complexity of cases processing through the system), prisons are nearing capacity, and the average waiting time from offences being charged to cases clearing the courts has increased from 250 days in 2019 to almost 400 in 2021.”

The conclusion of the Institute was that fixing these problems requires an end-to-end approach to better identify key skills shortages and unblock pressures, and uplift programme has only targeted one element of the system: “It’s critical that whoever forms the next government takes a more holistic approach to policy making in the criminal justice system.”

(Source and Image: Institute for Government)