THE police service is likely to lose years of valuable experience thanks poor morale caused by the Government\u2019s attack on pay and conditions, Essex Police Federation has said.<\/p>\n
Around 5,000 officers have said they are planning to leave the service in the next two years, according to a survey carried out by the Police Federation of England and Wales.\u00a0Of the 32,000 officers who responded, 94% said they believed morale in the service was low or very low.<\/p>\n
The survey found 94% of officers believe morale in the service was low, compared with 62% in the armed forces, who were asked the same question.<\/p>\n
And changes to shifts at Essex Police could be the final straw, said Mark Smith, chairman of Essex Police Federation.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cPeople are looking at the situation in Essex, they are looking at the changing shift patterns and they are saying, \u201cwell if it changes to that shift pattern I will just leave. I\u2019m gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think the Government wants people to stay in policing for a long time. They don\u2019t want it to be seen as a long term career. They want people to step in and step out so they don\u2019t build up a big pension. Look at Winsor and the Government\u2019s approach to pay and pensions. Winsor even suggested short term contracts. And with the changes that are going on with pay and conditions, people are just going to say \u201cenough is enough\u201d.\u201d<\/p>\n
The service will be depleted of experience and talent as a result, Mr Smith said.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cPeople with five or six years\u2019 experience are saying, \u201cI can\u2019t live the life I want to lead. I am going to get another job.\u201d But policing isn\u2019t just another job. Its a vocation.”<\/p>\n
Speaking this month, Sir Peter Fahy, vice president of ACPO and chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, said: \u201cAll parts of the public sector are reporting low morale among staff. There is concern at low pay increases, lack of promotion opportunities and the likely impact of further budget cuts with fewer staff to do more work.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolicing is no different but there is also a weariness at what is seen as constant negative press coverage, a blame culture looking for fault rather than learning lessons and a feeling that the realities of some of the social problems the police are having to deal with are just not appreciated.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite all this our staff are doing a magnificent job and victim satisfaction and public confidence in policing are being maintained. Police leaders recognise the pressures their staff are under and are working on many local initiatives to try and improve welfare and staff well-being.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE police service is likely to lose years of valuable experience thanks poor morale caused by the Government\u2019s attack on pay and conditions, Essex Police Federation has said. Around 5,000\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":819,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1553"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1592,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions\/1592"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}