‘Copped Enough’: South Yorkshire Police Federation Demand Fair Pay Amid Soaring Stress, Assaults and Financial Strain

South Yorkshire Police Federation has called on the Government to improve policing pay after years of “decimated” salaries.

The job is vital to maintaining public order and politicians must recognise the stress and danger it brings, according to Federation Chair Steve Kent.

His comments came as the Police Federation launched its Copped Enough campaign, which called for fair pay for officers.

Figures showed a third of officers struggle to afford food, rent or heating, and are 21% worse off in real terms than in 2010.

Steve said: “We need to keep the pressure on the Government to acknowledge the unique issues with pay in policing.

“It’s not acknowledged that police pay has been decimated more than pretty much any public sector in the last 15 years.

“We don’t have any industrial or employee rights yet, so it needs to be reflected in why we deserve more pay.

“It’s not about taking anything else off our colleagues in the public sector, but we really do need to be recognised.”

According to the Police Federation, 32 officers are violently assaulted every day – and the numbers are rising.

Mental health sickness is also soaring, with policing now the profession with the highest mental health-related illness rates.

Steve said this was causing issues for forces when it came to recruitment and retention.

He continued: “The challenge in terms of retaining officers is that we’re seeing, across the country, that people are leaving because it’s not attractive enough.

“People will look at a police salary and think ‘that’s good money’ but they’ve got no cognisance as to what officers have to do and what risk they put themselves in.

“There’s the constant risk of getting fired, the constant risk of going to court, the constant risk of getting assaulted – we see it all the time.

“It’s not remunerated well enough and that’s the problem.”

Some officers have taken on secondary jobs to keep them afloat, such are their struggles with paying the bills.It is a trend Steve said had also been seen at South Yorkshire Police.

He added: “People are having to get further jobs and further stuff to just make ends meet.
“That’s a sad state of affairs of where we are.”