Up to one in five police recruits are dropping out during their probation period, according to statistics that raise concerns about the government’s scheme to increase officer numbers.
On average, more than 9 per cent of recruits have left forces before becoming fully fledged officers, the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) said.
In some force areas the attrition rate is far higher, however. In Northamptonshire, since April 2020, 19.3 per cent have left before completing probation.
In North Yorkshire, Thames Valley and Cambridgeshire, 16 per cent left, while Bedfordshire, City of London, Suffolk and Surrey lost 15 per cent. Attrition rates have hit double figures in more than a third of the 43 forces in England and Wales since the government’s expansion programme began.
The figures will raise alarm about the scheme, through which Boris Johnson has promised to replace the 20,000 officers cut during the austerity era. Forces are relying on officers recruited in the programme to boost visibility and improve responses to particular crimes, such as burglary.
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Janette McCormick, the expansion programme director, said that the attrition rate of 9.1 per cent was expected and had been included in projections.
In December Nick Adderley, the chief constable of Northamptonshire, said that recruits were dropping out because they could not cope with the pressures of the job. They were taken aback by the violence they faced, he said, revealing that one 19-year-old had walked out after three days.
The Police Federation of England and Wales, which represents rank and file officers, has said that they need better benefits, mental health support and improved training. It has also called for better pay: the starting salary for a probationary constable is £19,164, barely above the national living wage. A spokesman for the federation said: “Leaders must ensure they do not just focus on getting people through the door, but also do what is needed to keep them by putting their workforce first so policing can continue to provide the best service to the public.”
Sir Tom Winsor, Her Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary, warned last week that the “sheer magnitude and speed” of the scheme “inevitably” carried risks that inappropriate people would be employed.
The government is funding the programme on top of usual recruitment. By December more than 11,000 extra officers had been recruited to the expansion programme. The NPCC figures, first reported by Police Oracle, showed that the total number since November 2019 was 28,173 but that 2,567 had left since April 2020, when uplift began — an attrition rate of just over 9 per cent. Cumbria and North Wales each had a rate of 3.9 per cent.
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Under initiatives overseen by the College of Policing, recruits can join with a university policing degree or get a policing degree during the first three years of service. Some who favour learning on the job have claimed that more officers are now dropping out.
The College of Policing said: “A survey of almost 4,000 recruits this year found that a consistently high number joining via the new entry routes indicated they were more satisfied with their training. Seventy-nine per cent undergoing the new training said it prepared them well for the role, compared with 60 per cent undergoing the old training.”
