#PayAndMorale: 86% of South Yorkshire Police officers feel ‘worse off’ financially now than they were five years ago

A SHOCKING 86% of South Yorkshire Police officers feel ‘worse off’ financially now than they were five years ago, new research has found.

And 16% ‘never’ or ‘almost never’ have enough money to cover all their essentials, according to the 2022 Police Federation of England and Wales Pay and Morale Report.

More than 450 officers responded to the research, which found that almost all officers (99%) had seen living cost increases in the previous month.

Last year police officers across England and Wales were given an average of a 5% pay rise – but this was way below inflation booming now at more than 10%. Household bills are rising sharply and over the past 12 years police officer pay has fallen in real terms by 25%.

It’s left 84% of respondents feeling dissatisfied with their pay.

Officers are also struggling with low morale and lack of support, the survey found. A huge 94% of officers said they do not feel respected by the Government, and nine in ten said morale was ‘low’ or ‘very low’ at South Yorkshire Police.

Officers are coming under attack from the public too, the report showed, with a fifth having suffered one or more injuries that required medical attention as a result of work-related violence in the last year.

Low mood and poor wellbeing are a problem at the force. Seven in ten (71%) said they do not feel valued within the service, and 68% said they would not recommend joining up to others.

85% of respondents from South Yorkshire Police indicated that they had experienced feelings of stress, low mood, anxiety, or other difficulties with their health and wellbeing over the last 12 months, and more than half (53%) said that they find their job ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ stressful.

Worryingly, 13% of respondents told researchers that they intend to resign from the police service either ‘within the next two years’ or ‘as soon as [they] can’.

Steve Kent, Chair of South Yorkshire Police Federation, said: “This another difficult read but sadly unsurprising. We are hearing across the public sector the anger at poor pay growth and nowhere is this as poor as within the police service.

“Our officers can’t take industrial action and that has been taken advantage of over the last decade. Last year saw the Government accept our pay review board decision and it was a very small step in the right direction. It needs to continue this year but I fear it won’t.

“As the survey says I fear we will start to lost recruits and serving officers if this continues.”

Steve added: “In terms of morale and wellbeing I see the force and ourselves with our welfare suite have put provisions in place to help with officers who are having difficulties. However we need to do more to prevent officers being burnt out in the first place.

“Our officers are frequently working exceptionally long hours and working their days off. Police work will always mean this happens, but it cannot continue to happen on the scale that it does. A lot of this is caused by centrally driven bureaucracy and a statistical culture within policing. This also needs to change. We need to focus on quality of service and allow our professional officers to the do the job that they are so good at doing.

“We also cannot continue to be the service of last resort. I don’t believe the public realise the staggering amount of demand we absorb from other public agencies. Demand that people on the high street would likely not think appropriate for the police to end up dealing with.

“What it does mean is we struggle to deal with the core tasks that we are here to deal with.

“And the knock on effect of that is that the police get lambasted for perceived failings in attending incidents and dealing with crime when in a lot of cases it will be because we are having to prop up other struggling services. I know the force is looking at addressing this which is very welcome, but it’s very important that the press and public understand this because policing is still under relentless pressure which isn’t reported in the media and certainly doesn’t attract any sympathy and understanding for which our colleagues in the NHS rightly seem to attract.”