Retention of detectives is still a major issues, says Federation Detective Lead

THE recruitment and retention of detectives is still a major issue, says South Yorkshire Police Federation.

Chris Borum, from the Federation, says there are 5,000 vacant detective posts in England and Wales meaning forces on average are 110 detectives short of what they need.

With heavy workloads and the pressure on the detectives do have, it’s no wonder that attracting uniform officers to the role can be challenging, Chris said.

“The retention of officers within the role and trying to attract officers to CID are the major issues,” he said at the recent Police Federation National Detectives’ Forum (PFNDF).

“You’re looking at a national shortage of about 5,000 detectives, on average of 110 detectives for each force. That’s obviously going to go up and down depending on the size of the force, but you’re in a situation where people don’t want to go in there when you’ve got uniformed officers fully aware of the difficulty of becoming a detective and the workloads that are huge.

“It says something when, for me, the challenging role is being a frontline, uniformed officer working all those shift patterns. To be a detective, you require dedication, stamina and extensive knowledge of criminal law, and it’s a great personal commitment to a professional role. You have to seek out where are the rewards for a detective,” Chris added.

“That comes with achieving justice for victims, but this can take months and years to get to that, and in the meantime, you’re always carrying a heavy workload.”

To plug the recruitment gap taking on the role needs more incentives, he said.

“You’re looking at how forces can provide an incentive to a role which is carrying unsustainable workloads, involving serious and complex crimes.

“Maybe we could create a financial incentive, like a bounty, what we used to have as a special, priority payment, to make it more attractive, because money does attract people to the role. There will always be overtime for officers in CID, but if they can get a monthly payment, it shows a little bit more value for that role in particular.

“I think also detectives need assurances around specific roles and the time spent in, for example, public protection. That does put a lot of officers joining, because of the safeguarding and risk that’s carried by detectives in those departments when you’re carrying double figures of serious sexual offences, there’s a lot of responsibility there for a detective. They’re striving to get the best result and do the best job they can, but at times they’re not going to be able to do that, and they become vulnerable,” Chris said.

“We found that, certainly within our force, that officers within the federated ranks have become subject to investigation as a result of potential force policies in the past and how we’ve dealt with those. Thankfully we are dealing with them a lot better with safeguarding and with protecting risk, but I think we’re paying the price for that now because there’s a lot of emphasis on that and I think in other areas we’re letting the public down.