Police morale at all-time low, says Lord Stevens

A former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), who is conducting an inquiry into changes in policing, has said officer morale is at its lowest ebb.

Lord Stevens, now chairing the Independent Commission on the Future of Policing in England and Wales, said 95 per cent of current officers do not trust the Government on policing. Only 15 of
14,000 officers polled felt they were offered “a great deal of support”.

With forces facing swingeing budget cuts and officers dealing with pay freezes, pension changes and possible redundancies, he said many officers nationwide were “very worried” about the future of policing and 56 per cent have considered leaving the service.

Lord Stevens told Police Professional that he was publishing the findings now as such a dire situation could not be left until his Commission reports in 2013.

“We have a national crisis of morale which threatens to undermine the work our officers are doing,” he said

“If we’re asking men and women to put their lives on the line to protect us, then I think they should know they’ve got the full support of the Government. These results show that they do not perceive this to be the case.”

Lord Stevens pointed to the ‘Plebgate’ controversy that led to Andrew Mitchell’s resignation as Chief Whip as a lightning rod for causing further deterioration in officers’ trust in the Government, highlighting and uniting many feelings of resentment among police forces across the country.

He said: “When I’ve been going around, I’ve been getting a certain phrase. I got it again this morning, when I came here – ‘the Government hates us’.”

Compounding the concerns outlined by Lord Stevens is the discovery of an internal MPS audit of its staff, which said morale in the force is so low only a third of officers said they had confidence in their force if they had to use it as a member of the public.

‘Your Views Count’, which took place in January and February but has just come into the public domain, canvassed roughly a quarter of the 53,710 MPS employees for their views and found officers questioning the role of the MPS’ upper-tiers in cutting costs, restructuring services and communicating with staff.

In figures obtained by The Observer, 27 per cent said they trusted MPS bosses “to lead with integrity”, while one in five felt they were doing a good job and 19 per cent felt decisions were made in the interests of communities.

Policing Minister Damian Green acknowledged police morale was not high, but said it was going through a “bad period” while the Government implemented austerity measures as a consequence of the previous Labour administration’s economic legacy.

“If you freeze people’s pay for two years and have big pensions reforms then obviously people are unhappy,” he said. “All parts of the public sector have to take their fair share of cuts, and at the same time we’ve embarked on absolutely necessary police reform.”

Mr Green told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the MPS figures on recruitment and crime pointed to the positive steps being made by the Government in policing matters.

“If you look at the objective measures – all organisations go through periods of good and bad morale – you look at what they’re doing, retention and recruitment among police forces is going extremely well, which is one measure you would normally take from an organisation,” he said.

“Perhaps more importantly still, you ask ‘how is that organisation doing its job?’. And crime is actually down ten per cent over the past two years.”

A Home Office spokesperson said that police reforms were working with latest figures showing crime continues to fall.