March 2015
Featured in this insight: Police, crime & community safety, Public health & wellbeing
South Yorkshire’s police force has the lowest morale, survey finds: A nationwide survey has found that South Yorkshire’s police force has the lowest morale in the country.
The survey – which was carried out by the Police Federation of England and Wales – has discovered that 98 per cent of police officers in South Yorkshire felt morale within their force was low, a higher average than the UK wide average of 90 per cent.
The reasons cited for the low morale was high workloads, poor pay and a lack of career options.
Of the South Yorkshire officers surveyed, 25 per cent said that they were uncertain about their future in the force.
Within the last eight years, the South Yorkshire police force lost 600 police officer roles as a result of government funding cuts.
Police chiefs anticipate that by 2020, there will be just 2,000 officers in the force, 1,300 less than that of 2007.
Chairman of the South Yorkshire branch of the Police Federation, Neil Bowles, said that he was not shocked by the findings of the research.
Bowles said of the survey: “I expected that morale would be among the lowest in the country. Some people just want to find a way of getting out of the job, it has got that bad,” he said.
“The senior command team is trying to keep things going but it is external factors that are affecting morale – the budget cuts and legacy issues for example. The child sexual exploitation investigation is also playing its part and that will go on for a long time.”
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