Chair’s Message To New PM

THE new Prime Minister needs to understand that policing is “on the cusp of a dangerous precipice” and needs urgent investment, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

Federation Chair Steve Kent said: “If I had a meeting with Rishi Sunak, I’d tell him that policing is broken, our officers are absolutely broken. I’d say that we’re only just getting back to where we were 12 years ago.

“I’d also tell him that we have to reduce the target culture within policing and that the bureaucracy has to stop. We have to be measured as a police service on one thing and one thing alone, and that is victim care. That is all that matters. Not how many arrests, because they don’t always paint a full picture. Somebody may not end up going to court, they may be released because of insufficient evidence; it doesn’t mean anything.

“What we need to do is to change the red-line attitude of policing. We need to calm it down and focus on letting cops go out, do quality work, take their time, and get it right first time.

“To achieve that, Rishi Sunak has got to massively grow investment in policing. It’s all very well having these extra police officers, but they need to have the tools, the kit, the software, to go out and do their job.

“We’ve had 10 years of austerity which has absolutely broken policing. If we go back into austerity, I don’t think it will be repairable. We will start seeing a mass exodus of police officers who can’t cope, and we are really on the cusp of a dangerous precipice. He needs to really grow funding in policing, and certainly not cut it.”