Policing ‘no longer a job for life’

POLICING is no longer a job for life and forces can expect to keep some officers for as little as five years before they leave the service altogether.

New statistics show that resignations from the police service have doubled nationally over the past five years, according to The Times newspaper. And Essex Police Federation has said that part of the problem could be that new officers ‘dip their toe in’ to the job before leaving to pursue other interests.

Secretary Phil Suarez said: “Officer resignations are something that I keep a close eye on.

“I think there’s multiple reasons for it: we’ve got officers now that purely and simply are just coming up to retirement age, and there are a lot of them because there was a lot of recruitment previously.

“I think we have to accept the fact that for many youngsters now coming into the profession, it isn’t a job for life.

“Even really probably from a College of Policing perspective, it’s sold as a five-year career, perhaps, where you uplift your skills, you bring something unique to the party yourself. Maybe you’ve been a graduate or you’ve had experience in other walks of life.

“Whereas when I joined it was always going to be a 30+ career, I think in this day and age you dip your toe in and you do your five or six years and then you move on.

“I personally don’t agree with that way forward because we’re in danger of losing a lot of skills if that’s the way we go.

“But I think when you look at the Winsor Review and all these sorts of things that have happened over recent years, that was always on the cards and a lot of thrust behind these reports was let’s just capture people for a certain amount of time, we’ll use them as we can and then they move on. A lot of police training and recruitment is heading into that arena now.”

Phil also said that the stresses and strains of the job are causing more officers to leave – and that looking after officers’ mental health must be a priority for forces.

He added: “I think when you look at the remunerations for police officers, you look at the stress levels. It’s a relatively well paid job, and I think some of the problem is when you look at where we sit in the national pay percentiles and all that sort of stuff, actually police officers are reasonably well paid.

“But you balance that against the stress and the violence that police officers suffer on a daily basis. In Essex you’ve got a 1,000 fewer officers so those that are left behind are actually picking up a very, very increased workload and that burns people out. Are there other jobs out there that are probably a lot easier for the money? I suspect that may be the case.

“Officers come in to the profession because they want to give something back to the community, they want to do the right thing, they want to serve the public. But actually, at what point do you say enough’s enough, ‘I can’t do that at the risk of my health’?

“I certainly think it’s something that the Chief will be looking at very closely and will probably share our concerns over recruitment.

“I had the pleasure of talking to 66 new recruits at Essex Police Training College, and I think the key to the future is what investments do we give those people, what support do we give those people?

“We’re quite happy now talking in public about mental health, as I said to the student officers ‘You have to look after each other, you are the future’.

“So I think we can get over these problems, that our people that we are recruiting in quite large numbers, we have to make sure that we try and keep them and retain them.