The majority of officers in some South Yorkshire teams have under five years\u2019 policing experience, the Federation has said, as it emerges that more experienced officers are leaving the service.<\/p>\n
New Home Office figures suggest that almost 60% of police officers who leave the service are resigning before reaching pension age, with low morale and poor job satisfaction cited as the main reasons.<\/p>\n
South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent said: \u201cSadly, this doesn\u2019t surprise me, but it is a real concern, because we need that full breadth of experience within policing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cynic in me thinks that Governments, past and present, don\u2019t necessarily want this to be a 30-year career for people because it can be cost-effective to get younger officers in. That may be too cynical a view.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing across South Yorkshire Police is teams with a majority of officers who have under five years\u2019 service, and sometimes under three years\u2019 service.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not faulting the work they do \u2013 they\u2019ll be working very hard and doing their best. But you need to have experienced people to learn from, you need to have peer support.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I joined the police, there were people of all lengths of service within my team, and the value of that is immense. We want people to join the police as a career and to stay with it; we don\u2019t want people leaving because of the financial situation they\u2019re in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve said he knew officers who had left the police to become train drivers, join the private sector or start their own businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere does seem to be more of a tendency for people to leave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n