Record number of police officers quit as morale reaches 'rock-bottom' in forces

The data shows that 5,058 officers left after a voluntary resignation in the year to March 31.

This number was out of a total of 9,080 officers who left the 43 forces in England and Wales in the last year.

The number of resignations is 10 per cent higher than in 2022/23 which saw 4,668 officers quit and an almost five-fold increase in a decade with 1,158 leaving in 2012.

In the last 12 months, 365 officers were also dismissed or had their contracts terminated, which is also the highest annual number on record.

A survey by the Police Federation also found that one in five police officers are planning to quit the police service.

The figures come shortly after the previous government hailed the success of its recruitment campaign to hire tens of thousands of new officers by March 2023.

The Home Office said as of March, there were 147,746 full-time equivalent (FTE) officers in post, which is the highest number since comparable records began in the year to March 2003.

But the figures also show that officers had reduced in some ranks and positions, including 1,000 fewer constables than a year ago and a 267 drop in the number of police community support officers.

Brian Booth, the Police Federation’s acting deputy national chairman described some of the reasons leading to a rise in voluntary resignations including unfair pay and low morale.

Booth said: "The evidence highlights unfair pay, unfair treatment by the former government and rock bottom morale as key factors leading to alarming retention rates.

“We urge the new government to heed the voices of our members, before we see another record broken on the number of police officers resigning. It is not too late to fix the retention crisis in policing.

“A fair pay deal for all rank-and-file police officers is desperately needed as they have suffered an almost 20 per cent pay cut in real terms between April 2000 and April 2023."

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Following an incident last week involving an officer kicking a man in the head after three officers were violently attacked, there were protests in the streets of Manchester.

Richard Cooke, chairman of the West Midlands Police Federation, said: “We lost over 5,000 colleagues in the year to March voluntarily leaving. Assaulted repeatedly, poorly paid for the risks, slagged-off by clueless idiots.

“After this week that trend will only accelerate. I don’t blame any of them.”

Federation sources have pointed out that more than five Greater Manchester Police officers were assaulted every day.

Some 1,861 officers in the force were assaulted last year, an average of more than 35 every week.

In the last year, 43 per cent (3,964) of the police officers who left the forces in England and Wales had less than five years of service.

Of this, 16 per cent (1,495) had served for less than one year, which is equivalent to nearly one in six of all officers who left.