Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 05:42 pm
Reading Time: 2 minutesJust a short one for this Bank Holiday weekend, on one of my favourite topics (to write about) the Police Uplift Programme.
This week saw the release of their latest quarterly updates, up to 31st March 2022.
This shows that they have succeeded in recruiting 13,576 of the 20,000 they have pledged to recruit before this time next year.
My initial reaction is that they are going to have to keep it up to recruit a further 6,500 in 12 months. Not impossible by any means, but they can’t afford to let up.
Then I started to look at the underlying, supporting data, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
In order to get those 13,576 extra officers it seems that they had to recruit a total of 31,006 officers. Wow.
And then I discovered a dataset that I’d never noticed before. The ages of those ‘extra’ Police Officers.
Since April 2020 the Home Office have been collecting and publishing the ages of their ‘extra’ officers.
Of the 31,006 recruited under this system we now know the age groups of 24,577 of them.
Out of 24,577 we find that 1,253 were in the 41-55 age group and 46 were in the Over 55 age group.
In the absence of any information to the contrary I’m happy to accept that many, if not all, of the 41-55 year olds were ex military, and it’s fair to say that they would bring with them life experiences and other transferable skills, 46 over the age of 55? Really? Even if they were ex military they’re not going to have a long and esteemed career are they? On the bright side they won’t be bothering te Pension Scheme for very long will they, hardly time to build up any kind of reasonable pension at all. 55-60 years of age, on a Response Team, chasing criminals, struggling with violent criminals. I can only speak for myself but I would neither want to be doing things like that at that age, neither would I want my local officers to be doing it for me. How will they deal with the Fitness Tests, knife-wielding, drugged-up, booze-fuelled thugs on the streets?
As an amusing aside, of those 1,253 41-55 year olds,we find that over a quarter of them (369) went to one Force, the Met. Not sure how I feel about that, they are the biggest single Force, and no Force took none. The Met also inherited 38 of the 46 Over 55s. Many Forces took none of those.
It just seems to me that, in order to hit their numerical target of 20,000 nett, they will accept almost anybody, but I could be wrong. I look forward to the day when they publish the data around Entry Routes, how many had degrees, how many signed up for Apprenticeship, and how many came in the old-fashioned way?
I joined at age 48, not ex military but lots of work experience most of which was relevant to policing. However, after a year on frontline response I was completely burnt out, demoralised and had problems with my line manager who didn’t like me and decided I was ‘not yet competent’ (despite having excelled on street duties phase previously). My confidence and enjoyment of the job was destroyed over time. I left before completing my probation due to the state I was in and the realisation that I had made a mistake joining at that age; given that it takes many years to establish yourself in the job before you can think about promotion or specialisation, especially in the competitive Force I had joined. I would agree with your assertion that joining in middle age is far from ideal. The upper age limit for new PC’s should be drastically reduced. It’s just not fair on those who join at that age thinking their maturity will help them when in fact the opposite is the case. Of course there will be exceptions, this is just my own experience.
Thank you for sharing that, and I’m sorry to hear your experience was far from ideal. I hope you didn’t think I was being offensive or dismissive, I have no issue whatsoever with the applicants, but a massive issue which allows it, and good people like yourself are given no warning of what the reality will be. My personal opinion is that it takes a competent officer 5-10 years to be in a position where they can deal with anything thrown at them, as you discovered, we never stop learning.
You’d like to think that the 1,253 had more common sense than to join the job!
You would, wouldn’t you
No I wasn’t offended at all, am glad you pointed it out as very few are willing to discuss this publicly. Yes I agree it takes that length of time to fully settle into the job to the point where you are sailing along happily and equipped with enough experience to tackle most things; and then be able to go for specialist jobs or promotion. So if someone joins in their early 50’s, by the time they’ve gained that experience it’s either time to leave or just limp on for a few more years.
Exactly, and thank you.