Home Office figures revealed that a total of 20,951 additional police officers have been hired since the Government's pledge in 2019 to recruit an extra 20,000 officers across England and Wales. This announcement comes just before next week's local elections, during which the Conservative and Labour parties have clashed over law and order issues.
The Tories are hoping that meeting their police recruitment target will give them a boost ahead of these elections where they fear losing more than 1,000 seats in councils throughout England. However, Scotland Yard failed to reach its goal of recruiting 4,557 new officers by March 2023; it has only recruited about 3,468 so far.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman dismissed criticism suggesting that this recruitment drive would simply restore police numbers to pre-austerity levels under the Conservatives' governance beginning in 2010. Essex Police Chief Constable Ben-Julian Harrington announced that his force received over 900 new officers through the uplift programme but expressed concerns regarding retention due to low salaries and increasing living costs.
Currently in England and Wales, one-third of all known serving police officers possess less than five years' experience. Furthermore, some trainee detectives who left the Met claimed approximately ten other recruits also exited prematurely from their cohort group.
Despite missing its individual target by around a thousand recruits for London’s Metropolitan Police Force (MET), there are seven forces reporting provisional figures at least twenty percent above their targets – including North Yorkshire and Northamptonshire with each having recruited an additional two hundred fifty-one new members respectively.
The Home Office maintains that all potential candidates receive thorough vetting procedures while adhering strictly to national standards prior to being employed as part of this initiative. By next month’s end (March), approximately £3.6 billion is expected be spent on expanding personnel within these forces, with the total cost over the next decade projected at £18.5 billion.
This significant increase in new police officers comes amidst election campaigns where law and order issues have been central to both Conservative and Labour platforms. With local elections just around the corner, it remains to be seen if this announcement will impact voters' decisions at the polls.