We need new cops through the door as quickly as possible, says Federation Chairman

THE Chairman of South Yorkshire Police Federation has said that it will be a massive challenge to get 20,000 more police officers through the door – but one police forces in England and Wales will be committed to achieving.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel have pledged to find 20,000 police officers for policing over the next three years starting with 6,000 in 2020.

Steve Kent, South Yorkshire Police Federation Chairman, has said that these officers are ‘much needed’ in South Yorkshire, where the force size is particularly low for the area they cover.

He said “We need to get these cops through the door, and to do this we need to sort out infrastructure to deal with that.

“It’s going to be a big challenge for our force, but with the Government having committed to us the first batch, we are planning hard to make this work.

“In South Yorkshire, we need this uplift of officers more than most, because for the size of force that we are and the population that we cover, we are actually extremely understaffed when you compare us to the similar sized forces.”

South Yorkshire are set to receive around 500 new officers in the uplift, alongside 250 that South Yorkshire’s Chief Constable Stephen Watson had already earmarked funding for in the force – meaning they will receive around 750 new cops over the next 2-3 years.

Steve continued “It’s massively important that those numbers, coupled with the couple of hundred that our Chief had already earmarked for coming in before the 20,000 were announced, come through as quickly as possible. We need to grow our numbers this year, and then  just keep the pressure on to make sure that doesn’t tail off over the next three years.

“This uplift won’t return us to those pre-2010 levels, but it gets us a long way to there. We need to see that steady increase of officers coming through the door so we can get back to the numbers where we need to be.

“Our ideal point, going forward into the next decade, is to be aiming for the 3,500 mark, and from my perspective I don’t think we’ll be happy until we get to there.”