Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 12
12
Accepted
Disorder incidents had detrimental effect on police officers already facing heavy workloads and stress.
Conclusion
Police officers worked for long hours in extremely difficult circumstances during disorder incidents, many of them suffering injury and other trauma. Those that were re-deployed but did not face significant disorder will still have experienced fatigue and an increased workload. Police forces did their best to ameliorate the impact on officers but it is clear that the disorder has had a detrimental effect at a time when many officers were already struggling with heavy workloads, fatigue and stress. (Conclusion, Paragraph 47)
Government response summary AI-generated
The Home Secretary has provided police forces in England and Wales with £28.3 million of funding to cover all of the additional costs of policing the disorder.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government · verbatim extract
Accepted
We are looking to develop reforms to the workforce as part of the forthcoming Police Reform White Paper. This will include activity designed to support the retention of police officers and to support them through their careers. This Government recognises the importance of recruiting the right candidates into policing and retaining skilled and experienced officers. The retention of police officers is a priority for the Home Office and the National Police Chiefs’ Council. Voluntary resignation rates in England and Wales, at 3.4%, are low compared to other sectors. The latest Home Office survey of new recruits carried out in 2023 (receiving a total of 3,556 responses) found that 85% of respondents were satisfied with their job, 72% intend to stay in their role until retirement age. Experienced officers are incredibly valuable, which is why forces should be using effective, evidence-based strategies to manage retention and progression of existing officers in addition to focussing on high quality recruitment processes to recruit new officers. Decisions about police recruitment, including how recruitment and selection processes are run, are a matter for Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners and are therefore managed locally by forces. This is done within a national application, assessment and selection framework, in line with national guidance maintained by the College. The College of Policing also provides a learning platform for all forces that contains learning, insights and guidance themed around Attraction, Recruitment, Onboarding and Retention. Forces should be accessing this learning to support recruitment and retention activity. A specific focus on retention is also being delivered through the NPCC National Leavers Framework (NLF). The NLF promotes the use of standard data collection and consistent processes across forces, including Stay Interviews and Exit interviews. Forces applying these standards and collect data via the framework, establishes an evidence base which can increase understanding of the reasons why officers are leaving. This will enable forces to put measures in place to improve retention. With the additional adoption of Stay Interviews, there are opportunities to also improve support for officers to remain in policing and improve morale.
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