Politicians Must Listen To The Police On Funding

Politicians need to urgently address policing budgets, performance culture and poor pay, as at the moment forces are being “set up to fail”, the Chair of South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

Speaking during the party conference season and ahead of the Police Federation of England and Wales’ annual conference on 21-22 October, Steve Kent said: “We need to continue to speak to politicians about where we are as a police service – our funding hasn’t drastically changed and we are still under immense pressure.”

He continued: “Northern forces like ours, because of the funding formula, are sinking worse than others. However, we are expected to police to the same standard and with the same resources as everybody else, which is just not acceptable. South Yorkshire Police has essentially been set up to fail with ludicrous targets and bureaucracy. HMIC and the College of Policing are expecting levels of excellence that cannot be maintained with the resources we’ve got.

“The performance culture within policing is damaging the service we give to the public and it’s damaging our officers. We shouldn’t police on the basis of a statistical need; we should police based on the needs of the individuals that we’re supposed to support and help.”

Steve added that poor police pay was also a huge issue that needed to be addressed: “We need to make the job more attractive, because for the pressure that our officers are under, the pay is simply not enough.”