South Yorkshire One Of Most Underfunded Forces

South Yorkshire Police remains among the most “under resourced and underfunded” forces in the country, its Federation has said.

The bleak picture was revealed after the Government corrected its neighbourhood policing numbers, showing there were 2,611 fewer officers than previously thought.

SYP Federation Chair Steve Kent said the force remained 400 officers down on its peak, urging the Government to help it grow.

He said: “That figure doesn’t take into account the differences in society to when we were at that number, which was pre-2010.

“There needs to be a drastic uplift of police officers, especially in the neighbourhood policing area because that’s how our force operates.

“Neighbourhood policing is our core function and everything else revolves around that.”

Despite the urgent need for neighbourhood resources to be bolstered, Steve claimed this would not fix wider issues faced by the force.

He called on wider investment across SYP so neighbourhood officers did not have to cover gaps in other departments.

Steve said: “It’s all very well having small response teams, for example, but all they’ll end up doing is needing neighbourhood cops to come off their core duties to help out.

“Poorer northern forces like ourselves are still getting a raw deal and we are still 400-900 cops down on what we actually should be.

“That’s considering when you look at similar forces, our crime levels and our population – and it’s not acceptable.

“If you started talking about numbers like that, then I think the public would start to see a real significant change in the way that our cops would have time to go out and actually be proactive.”