Federation outlines plan to restore morale of detectives

ENSURING officers are able to take their rest days, adhering to the proper working week and maintaining decent shift patterns could help to restore morale amongst detectives, Essex Police Federation has said.

A recent national survey has shown deep levels of despair in investigations departments, with nine in ten detectives taking sick leave through mental ill health. 

While pumping more cash into the organisation would go a long way to repairing the situation, there are still steps the service can take, Steve Taylor Federation Chairman said.

“Money is the elephant in the room in every single conversation that we have with the organisation around trying to make things better and trying to improve things. But it’s not the only lever that the organisation could pull on. There are things it can do, shift patterns for example. At the local level we see a number of our teams in Essex adopting local patterns that suit the service that they need to provide and the detectives that need to provide that role.

“And understanding from management that whilst we can’t put more money in your pocket, we can take steps to improve the quality of work and the environment that you’re working in. We’ll see CDIs, up and down the force, coming in on rest days to do painting, painting office spaces, that type of thing. So it’s not just about the money.

It is about the force recognising the effort that people put in, and finding innovative ways of compensating them for that effort. So, time off, rest days, expectation of working week, shift patterns. There are things the job can do, and we do spend our time, in the federation, trying to pull, or encourage the job to pull on some of those levers.”

7,803 officers responded to the Police Federation of England and Wales Detectives’ Survey. 56% of said that service cuts have had a huge impact on their morale whilst over a quarter of detectives felt their physical and mental health had been affected.

Half of respondents also said cuts had led to a substantial increase in fatigue (53%) and stress (49%) as they battled to keep up with demand.

A staggering nine out of ten of respondents who had taken sickness absence due to their mental health and wellbeing said that the difficulties they experienced were caused, or exacerbated, by work.