The largest police force in the UK are facing a “deeply concerning” shortfall in numbers a many do not want to join the Met Police and many are quitting their probation period.
The Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said his forces will be short by the end of the March by 1,400 and in the same period in 2025 there will be a shortfall of 2,650 given the current application levels.
The Home Office under the national programme to replace 20,000 police who quit have allocated funding in an attempt to employ 35,425 full-time cops.
On Wednesday Sir Mark was giving evidence to the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee, he warned that unless they can “make a sharp movement” numbers will fall further.
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Sir Mark said, “Where we anticipate being at the end of March is around 34,000 ie around 1,400 light.
“We anticipate our projection for the next year based on current application levels, recruiting levels etc, unless we can make a sharp movement in that, is for that to drop by approximately another 1,250.
“So we would expect to be at 32,750 roughly at the end of March 2025.
“Now that is that is deeply concerning to me.”
Sir Mark said that the Met wants to free up around 3,000 police officers that are doing staff jobs, to replace them with civilians.
He said that pay levels are a big issue for London and police scandals are putting people off wanting to join.
He told MPs, “We’ve been looking at public sector employability and recruitment issues across London, and it’s pretty widespread across the whole public sector, which tells me it’s a pattern,” he told the committee.
“We’ve also thought hard about the sort of reputation and confidence issues.”
Sir Mark added, “I’m pulling every lever I have in my gift and asking others to pull the levers they have in their gift.”
Since 2019 almost 4,500 cops have quit during their probation period because they are “under immense pressure.”
Donna Jones, who chairs the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners said that the pathway is causing elevated workloads.
LBC reported that Jones said, “A lot of people with really good skill sets – high levels of common sense, people that have got great interpersonal skills, [who are good at] diffusing situations – are not necessarily people who want to be in a classroom undertaking a degree.
“The reason that we’re seeing a high turnover is because police officers have been under immense pressure – studying on their days off, studying on their rest days, studying on annual leave days – to keep up with the academic side of becoming a police officer, rather than relaxing and unwinding, which is what they need to do when they are undertaking a pretty stressful job.
“The Police Entry Degree Qualification – so having a police degree – is nonsensical. It is not something that should have ever been made mandatory.
“Police officers do not need a degree to be decent police officers – they need life skills.”
Steve Hartshorn, Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales told LBC in November, “[some] find the work-life balance of trying to be a full-time police officer, be it frontline policing or a direct entry detective, and then have to do your study as well, too impactive and they’re just not coping… there are some major concerns here for the future of policing.”
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