THOUSANDS\u00a0of police officers are leaving the service before their time is up because they are exhausted and burnt out, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.<\/p>\n
2,424 officers voluntarily left forces in England and Wales prior to completing their full potential pensionable service this year. The figure is up almost 400 on the previous year.<\/p>\n
Steve Kent, Federation Chairman, said: \u201cPeople are burned out and they\u2019re going as quickly as they can. People have done a lot of service and then with the sudden increased demand over the last five or six years has just taken its toll as people are weighing up their options.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is concerning for those officers, obviously going early, although I know most of them are doing it after making careful, considered decisions. This makes me worry for the cops who won\u2019t be able to go at that time because of the new pension scheme. They\u2019re going to be doing potentially 35 years coming up and they\u2019re going to be absolutely exhausted by the time they get to that age. It is a concerning trend across the board.\u201d<\/p>\n
Forces are struggling to fill the gaps as experienced and specialist officers leave; 33 out of 43 forces said they are not recruiting enough detectives.<\/p>\n
Steve added: \u201cI speak to a lot of officers who have got to the age where they say \u2018I\u2019ve had enough, I can\u2019t cope with it. I can\u2019t still be working shifts\u2019, and they will look at that earlier leaving. It is a shame because then financially they\u2019re missing out on quite a lot. It\u2019s a shame for the force because we\u2019re losing skill sets.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut people are struggling with the workload. It\u2019s becoming a breaking point. We are fortunate in South Yorkshire Police that the chief found some money to recruit some new cops and we are having almost double intakes this year, but we are just filling the gaps that people are leaving so we\u2019re not making any gains. If you\u2019re having teams of cops where a massive percentage are young in service then losing that valuable experience is absolutely massive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve said better budgeting and improvements to pay and conditions could remedy the situation, along with better demand management systems.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cIf we were to up the policing budget across the country and we got those 12,000 cops back then we would have a 20-30% more cops on shift, and they would feel less under stress. They\u2019d still be doing a stressful job but it would be shared out better and they\u2019d feel more comfortable. So this essentially all boils down to central funding and Government attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n