South Yorkshire Police is one of the busiest forces in the country, yet one of the poorest-funded, so it\u2019s no surprise that officers are suffering from fatigue, the Federation has said.<\/p>\n
Nationally, nearly 70% of officers are experiencing high levels of fatigue, with 28.9% of officers reporting \u201cvery high levels\u201d, according to the latest National Police Wellbeing Survey.<\/p>\n
Steve Kent, Chair of South Yorkshire Police Federation, said these figures were lower than he\u2019d expected from his experience of speaking to officers.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWhen I go out and speak to officers, it\u2019s almost a universal feeling that they are absolutely knackered and fatigued. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s the same for our staff colleagues as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cSouth Yorkshire Police officers do an unbelievable job. We\u2019re one of the busiest and highest-performing forces in the country, yet we\u2019re one of the poorest-funded and poorest-resourced. That is an absolute testament to our officers and staff and how hard they\u2019re working.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not the fault of our force that our resources aren\u2019t there. We\u2019re now at 3,100 officers, which is 350 down on where we were in 2010; meanwhile there\u2019s an increase in certain types of crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing that\u2019s going to improve this situation is to give the police in South Yorkshire more resources and better budgets, and also to give us the resources to do our job. That\u2019s going to take yet another conversation with central Government about the funding formula, because it cannot be right that there are some forces with the same population and same levels of crime, yet they\u2019ve got 800 more officers than us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve added: \u201cThe people of South Yorkshire, to be quite blunt, are being absolutely sold a kipper by central Government.\u201d<\/p>\n