News that there is a national shortfall of 5,000 detectives is ‘startling’, says Staffordshire Police Federation.
The worrying figure was revealed during a break-out session on investigative policing at this year’s Police Federation of England and Wales Conference in Birmingham.
The plenary highlighted the extreme stress and strain detectives are under across the country.
That’s backed up by a recent PFEW survey which revealed that 76% of detectives see their workload as being ‘too high’ with 85% saying morale was suffering.
Staffordshire Police Federation Secretary Glyn Pattinson said the detective shortfall was concerning, although locally the picture looks a little brighter.
“That 5,000 figure was startling but here we’ve just recruited and had a good uptake of officers coming in from uniform.
“To be honest that’s because we haven’t recruited detectives for so long that we had quite a few who had aspirations of moving into CID.”
The drop in wages moving into the department from uniform, which is around £1,200 a year, was put forward as one reason why nationally things are looking bleak.
Glyn – who is also Vice Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales National Detectives Forum – said he is hopeful that the solutions being mooted may bear fruit.
“That drop in money is a big deal for younger officers coming in,” he said.
“But they know that they will have increased responsibility and have a chance to deal with the most serious and complex crimes and deliver justice to victims, so it’s a personal choice.”
“That responsibility takes its toll on your welfare, but hopefully what Matt Jukes (South Wales Chief Constable and National Lead for Investigative Resilience) is looking at will be a good thing for investigative policing.”
