THE recruitment and retention of detectives is still a major issue, says South Yorkshire Police Federation.<\/p>\n
Chris Borum, from the Federation, says there are 5,000 vacant detective posts in England and Wales meaning forces on average are 110 detectives short of what they need.<\/p>\n
With heavy workloads and the pressure on the detectives do have, it\u2019s no wonder that attracting uniform officers to the role can be challenging, Chris said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe retention of officers within the role and trying to attract officers to CID are the major issues,\u201d he said at the recent\u00a0Police Federation National Detectives\u2019 Forum (PFNDF).<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re looking at a national shortage of about 5,000 detectives, on average of 110 detectives for each force. That\u2019s obviously going to go up and down depending on the size of the force, but you\u2019re in a situation where people don\u2019t want to go in there when you\u2019ve got uniformed officers fully aware of the difficulty of becoming a detective and the workloads that are huge.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt says something when, for me, the challenging role is being a frontline, uniformed officer working all those shift patterns. To be a detective, you require dedication, stamina and extensive knowledge of criminal law, and it\u2019s a great personal commitment to a professional role. You have to seek out where are the rewards for a detective,\u201d Chris added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat comes with achieving justice for victims, but this can take months and years to get to that, and in the meantime, you\u2019re always carrying a heavy workload.\u201d<\/p>\n
To plug the recruitment gap taking on the role needs more incentives, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re looking at how forces can provide an incentive to a role which is carrying unsustainable workloads, involving serious and complex crimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe we could create a financial incentive, like a bounty, what we used to have as a special, priority payment, to make it more attractive, because money does attract people to the role. There will always be overtime for officers in CID, but if they can get a monthly payment, it shows a little bit more value for that role in particular.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think also detectives need assurances around specific roles and the time spent in, for example, public protection. That does put a lot of officers joining, because of the safeguarding and risk that\u2019s carried by detectives in those departments when you\u2019re carrying double figures of serious sexual offences, there\u2019s a lot of responsibility there for a detective. They\u2019re striving to get the best result and do the best job they can, but at times they\u2019re not going to be able to do that, and they become vulnerable,\u201d Chris said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found that, certainly within our force, that officers within the federated ranks have become subject to investigation as a result of potential force policies in the past and how we\u2019ve dealt with those. Thankfully we are dealing with them a lot better with safeguarding and with protecting risk, but I think we\u2019re paying the price for that now because there\u2019s a lot of emphasis on that and I think in other areas we\u2019re letting the public down.<\/p>\n
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