What broke Britain’s police? The two unions representing most police officers have come together in a joint statement to describe a service in crisis ahead of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s crucial spending review on Wednesday. But this is more than a couple of interest groups pleading for more cash. Anyone with eyes can see that policing in this country is caught on the horns of fiscal and moral injury. And it is the public that will suffer as both combine in a death spiral of recruitment and retention failure.

On the financial front, the Police Federation and the Superintendents Association claim there is a shortfall in cash for policing of £1.2 billion. This is despite additional central funding over the last five years of nearly 25%. Much of this was taken up by efforts to raise salaries to make them more competitive and the last government’s Police Uplift Programme, which began in 2019/20 to recruit an additional 20,000 officers by March 2023. The amount of money is not inconsiderable. Policing and Crime Commissioners have been the net beneficiaries of millions in grant payments and various funding pots. But these often-haphazard income streams and initiatives have not remotely kept pace with population growth or the increasing complexity of policing a society more polarised, divided and full of low-level crime than it has been for decades.

Quite apart from the toll of inflation, rising levels of robbery with knives, fraud, theft and sexual offending have seen a relentless and growing demand for service that far outstrips available resources. The service is quite simply not funded to respond to public or political expectations. It is ironic to hear charges of “two-tier policing” in places where there are barely enough officers available to provide a life-or-death response. While reported resignation rates are not high in the context of comparable uniformed groups, like prison officers, they are rising annually in a profession where experience matters. The reasons for leaving are similar to those that deter people from joining: low salary, and awful morale. In 2023, the Police Federation which represents officers up to the rank of inspector found that 87% of officers reported low morale and 82% reported mental health problems. Broken officers cannot police a broken society.

What is the source of this morale crisis? You only need to look at the treatment of Dorset constabulary officer Lorne Castle for an object lesson. PC Lorne arrested a boy who was later found to have been armed with a knife in January 2024. Castle was dismissed for “gross misconduct” as a result of how that arrest took place with evidence supplied by his body-worn video camera. Many ordinary people looking at the footage would disagree with the independent panel’s findings, amongst which was the faintly ludicrous assertion that in the midst of restraining a clearly resisting suspect, he failed to show “courtesy and respect”. Castle’s impeccable career with commendation for bravery was flushed down the toilet for a moment where he admitted he should have exercised more self-control.

But I can tell you from personal experience that the use of force is rarely how those who sit in judgment imagine it to be. Bringing people under control in a dynamic situation is messy, untidy and frequently looks awful. But none of this context mattered to the panel or deterred them from making a decision that has reverberated through policing. PC Lorne’s colleagues report being taunted by youngsters in the town centre who believe they are untouchable. For other officers across the country, tired of doing too much with too little for too long, the additional hazard of ham-fisted scrutiny that lasts years for the sort of robust policing the country demands is proving too much. They will either vote with their boots or worse, think twice before getting stuck into situations where they perceive no one has their backs.

If we don’t have suitable and sufficient numbers of police officers clearly and confidently in charge of our streets then the societal consequences will be dire. The price of policing is the value of safe communities. Voluntary resignations have more than doubled from 2020 and now make up the majority of those leaving. We are heading fast in the wrong direction. Some 95% of surveyed officers cite “poor treatment by government” as a drain on their morale and effectiveness. That alone ought to give the Chancellor and Keir Starmer some pause.

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Ian Acheson is a former prison governor and author of Screwed: Britain’s Prison Crisis and How To Escape it.

NotThatBigIan

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