“If you want to attract the best, you need to pay the best.”

POOR starting salaries for police officer roles could be preventing the best candidates coming forward, according to Essex Police Federation.

The National Police Chiefs Council has said the starting salary for new officers, set between £19,971 and £23,124 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland needs to be addressed because it’s a barrier to recruitment.

“The force tells me they’re not short of candidates coming forward to take on new positions. Perhaps that will be used as evidence for the salary not being an issue, but I dispute that,” he said.

“We need around ten recruits for every one that we get through the process, and we are shooting ourselves in the foot unnecessarily by having such a woefully low starting salary.

“It’s just not fit for purpose – if you want to attract the best, you need to pay the best.

“You only have to look at Specials. A number have got a really strong public service ethic and the single factor that holds them back from joining the regular officers is the compensation.

“That tells me that other industries pay better for their skills than we can in ours. That shouldn’t be right,” he added.

“We should be in a position where we’re falling over people wanting to be officers so that the pool from which we can draw our new officers is huge. Therefore, we should be able to take the cream, the very best of those officers.”

Going for quality rather than quantity when it comes to candidates should be the tactic, Steve believes.

“We shouldn’t just accept what we can get with a woefully low starting salary because the volume’s high enough for us to kid ourselves that the starting salary’s acceptable. It’s not,” he said.

“You need to pay more in order to increase the level of people that you can attract to the role so that our ability to take the very best of those people is as strong as it can be. In that way, we’re all benefiting. Society, serving officers, the lot.”