Officers Struggle With High Workloads

Low numbers of officers and inexperienced line managers are making workload issues worse, the Chair of Hampshire Police Federation has said, as the latest State of Policing Report is published by the HMICFRS.

In his annual assessment of policing in England and Wales, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary Andy Cooke said that many officers have high workloads and don’t feel valued enough for the work they do. He also said that forces must do everything they can to better lead and support their officers and staff.

Hampshire Police Federation Chair Zoë Wakefield said: “Again, this goes back to the policing cuts and their consequences. There just aren’t enough officers. We need to get our numbers back up to where they were in 2010 and then beyond that.

“Another problem is that we’ve got young-in-service officers who have huge workloads and don’t know how to manage them – there needs to be support for that, but also a lot of the workloads are too high.

“I was in a meeting yesterday where Superintendents were saying: ‘The workloads for neighbourhood teams are too high, but we don’t know where to move the work to because everybody is swamped’. And that’s the problem, the fact there are not enough officers to do the work and we need more officers. It’s like moving the deckchairs on the Titanic. Everybody is so busy, even the bosses are struggling to find solutions.”

Line managers also needed to support their officers more and know how to manage the problem, Zoë said.

She said: “We hear from a lot of officers who don’t feel supported by their line managers. But we’ve got a lot of inexperienced line managers as well. The force could give more guidance to line managers to help them know the options available to them to help them support their teams.

“We know some people have gone to their line managers and said: ‘Look, I can’t cope, my workload is too high’. And some line managers have said: ‘Well, you could come in on your days off and do some work’. Well no, actually officers shouldn’t have to work on their days off.

“Or else they’re told that it’s tough, it’s just the way it is, which is really unhelpful. There are other ways of supporting officers in that situation.”