SOUTH Yorkshire residents have the highest increase in confidence in their police force in the country, according to a new survey.<\/p>\n
In the neighbourhoodalert.co.uk survey, 67.5% of respondents said they had increased confidence in the force.<\/p>\n
Around 4,200 South Yorkshire people took part in the survey \u2013 only force areas with more than 900 respondents were included in the final results. South Yorkshire came top for this measure out of the 26 forces who qualified.<\/p>\n
Federation Chairman Steve Kent said he was very proud of the force\u2019s officers.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely vital that they\u2019re recognised for this. This is down to the cops on the ground doing their very best to look after people.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we know, South Yorkshire has some of the poorer funding per population compared to other forces, and we\u2019ve got some of the smallest numbers of officers when you compare with other similar-sized counties. So this is testament to the hard work the cops are doing out there to keep in touch with people and to carry on doing the good work that they do.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the public appreciate how difficult it is for policing, so it\u2019s probably coming down to great communication between officers and the public, and it\u2019s a good story for them out there to recognise all the hard work that they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The recognition comes at a time when Steve says morale is still low, as officers are having to cope with increased workloads as well as deal with the Covid-19 crisis.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI like to think we\u2019ve hit rock bottom and it will slowly start to pick up as soon as more cops come onto the street. I think that stories like this will help with morale because all we\u2019re surrounded by in policing is negativity, and this is obviously a good change to that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve said this in the past that South Yorkshire officers can say that they\u2019re some of the hardest-working police officers in the country because we do the most with the least. We are one of the poorer-funded forces and it just shows how amazing the officers are that they get recognition despite those sort of restrictions in terms of budgets and resources.\u201d<\/p>\n