The Metropolitan Police Federation has told the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee that its members are under-resourced, fatigued and feel that senior leaders don’t care.
Metropolitan Police Federation Chair Paula Dodds and Secretary Matt Cane attended the London Assembly on 4 November, where they were asked how officers were handling recent significant changes within the Met.
Matt told them: “One of my Fed Reps has been a police officer for 40 years and I asked him the other day whether he’s ever known morale to be so low – he said no. The Met seems to be addicted to redeployment of its workforce…there’s so much uncertainty in the workforce and that’s creating concern among my members, and anger.”
A major issue discussed was the high number of cancelled rest days, often due to officers being asked to police protests and fill gaps in the service.
Paula said: “If we were in a position to reduce officers’ workloads by the use of technology, more officers, giving them time to deal with just their job…that would help officers manage the workloads that they’ve got and not increase them by cancelling rest days and making them work extra nights when they can’t progress investigations.
“During the public order [incidents] last summer, the Met was cancelling 26,000 rest days a month for officers to be in London. We’ve got about 250,000 rest days outstanding, which is the equivalent of 500 years – how are we going to get those rest days back?
“Yes, there are going to be slight changes in how we police protests going forward, but we’ve still got to cover those 500 years.”
Paula and Matt explained that morale among officers was low and that they were worried about attrition in the service. Matt said: “There’s a culture of fear that’s developed over recent years, where everyone thinks the force is out to get them, so it’s not a nice place to work.”
Paula added: “If you look at the recent surveys from PFEW and Oscar Kilo, 37-39% of Met Police officers want to leave in the next 12 months – that’s 10,000 officers who want to leave because of the way the organisation is at the moment. We can’t retain staff, we’re not recruiting staff to match those who are leaving, so who knows what the future’s going to look like in two to five years’ time?”
Matt said: “Also, 63% of officers feel too fatigued to carry out their duties – not only is that a problem for our officers and a concern for us, but the people of London aren’t getting the police service they deserve.”
Paula and Matt said the situation wasn’t helped by the feeling that there was “a gulf” between senior policing leaders and Federated ranks. Paula said: “Senior leaders don’t communicate with those on the frontline as to why they’re doing [things], what the purpose is.”
Matt said: “The Federated ranks don’t feel that they’re listened to. We as a Federation don’t feel we’re meaningfully consulted sometimes on issues, because there’s no legal obligation to – we’re not a trade union, we don't have those rights within legislation. So there’s this gap between my members and the senior leaders within the force.”
