South Yorkshire Police Federation has called on the Government to improve policing pay after years of \u201cdecimated\u201d salaries.<\/p>\n
The job is vital to maintaining public order and politicians must recognise the stress and danger it brings, according to Federation Chair Steve Kent.<\/p>\n
His comments came as the Police Federation launched its Copped Enough campaign, which called for fair pay for officers.<\/p>\n
Figures showed a third of officers struggle to afford food, rent or heating, and are 21% worse off in real terms than in 2010.<\/p>\n
Steve said: \u201cWe need to keep the pressure on the Government to acknowledge the unique issues with pay in policing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not acknowledged that police pay has been decimated more than pretty much any public sector in the last 15 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have any industrial or employee rights yet, so it needs to be reflected in why we deserve more pay.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about taking anything else off our colleagues in the public sector, but we really do need to be recognised.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the Police Federation, 32 officers are violently assaulted every day \u2013 and the numbers are rising.<\/p>\n
Mental health sickness is also soaring, with policing now the profession with the highest mental health-related illness rates.<\/p>\n
Steve said this was causing issues for forces when it came to recruitment and retention.<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cThe challenge in terms of retaining officers is that we\u2019re seeing, across the country, that people are leaving because it\u2019s not attractive enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople will look at a police salary and think \u2018that\u2019s good money\u2019 but they\u2019ve got no cognisance as to what officers have to do and what risk they put themselves in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s the constant risk of getting fired, the constant risk of going to court, the constant risk of getting assaulted – we see it all the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not remunerated well enough and that\u2019s the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some officers have taken on secondary jobs to keep them afloat, such are their struggles with paying the bills.It is a trend Steve said had also been seen at South Yorkshire Police.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cPeople are having to get further jobs and further stuff to just make ends meet.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s a sad state of affairs of where we are.\u201d<\/p>\n