Anecdotal evidence that some forces are struggling to keep their Uplift recruits appears to be backed up by official statistics.

Police Oracle can reveal some forces are struggling to hang onto new recruits due to double digit attrition rates.

Data from the National Police Chiefs’ Council obtained by Police Oracle revealed the average attrition rate relating to officers who have been recruited but leave before completing probation is 9.1% with 2,567 leavers from 28,173 new recruits. The recruits have been recorded from November 2019, while the leavers from April 2020.

But for a group of forces, it’s far higher: 19.3% of Northamptonshire recruits have left in probation since the start of Uplift. North Yorkshire recorded 16.8%, Cambridgeshire saw 16.1% exit and Bedfordshire lost 15.7%.

The Met has seen 528 officers leave before completing probation, 7.9% of total recruits to the force. Thames Valley has lost 116 trainees – 16% of its programme.

Attrition rates vary widely between forces: Cumbria and North Wales each have a rate of 3.9%, with 11 and 10 leavers respectively, compared with a 19.3% rate for Northamptonshire which has seen 66 of their 342 recruits leave within their probation period.

Each force’s attrition percentage, based on the management information provided to Uplift is as per the below table.

*Source NPCC: This is management information and could contain a small margin of error.

It’s the first time progress has been checked since September 2019 when the Uplift campaign was launched by Boris Johnson.

The data in detail

In addition to reaching this figure, forces have also been required to backfill any leavers. This has resulted in fluctuating Uplift figures as leavers create a necessity for more recruits. The total number of new recruits across the three year period will therefore need to exceed the 20,000 figure.

Boris Johnson announced funding to support the recruitment of a first wave of up to 6,000 officers, who would be shared among the 43 forces in England and Wales.

Funding included £750m for 2020 to 2021 and an immediate £45m to kick-start recruitment.

A further 6,000 was given as the target for the year ending March 2022. This leaves an 8,000 target for the final year of the programme, dating to March 2023. The latest recorded figure as of December 31, is 11,048 officers counting towards the Uplift programme.

Northampton’s Chief Constable Nick Adderley warned in November last year that his force’s early exit figures were beginning to increase.

In May he revealed trainees had quit after their first self-defence class because they were shocked at the violence they would face and others had only just realised they would have to work weekends.

He told Police Oracle that the exit rate had gone from 100 a year to 120. Among them was a 19-year-old who quit after three days.

 “And I think that's going to grow,” the Chief warned.

Discussions on social media began emerging and officers told us people were leaving courses or quitting after taking the oath.

Issues were also raised by recruits over balancing course studies with operational policing,

And last month, the Met announced it was going outside area to achieve its Uplift quota.

Steve Hartshorn, the Fed’s national firearms lead, said there is not only concern about the Uplift generation staying but a wider concern that they aren’t making up for the number of established officers quitting: “I’m of the view there’s more leaving than joining,” he said.

Lee Broadbent, Greater Manchester Fed Chair said there are issues with probationers being signed off. He believes so far in his force alone, performance issues have been raised against new recruits under regulations 12 and 13.

One cohort is understood to have 56% where probation has been extended and 97% of the second cohort have also had their probation extended.

He told Police Oracle: “It’s difficult to know exactly. But we’ve got a big problem that we’re starting to see.”

At the start of the Home Office Uplift programme, a baseline figure was calculated for each force which takes into account recruitment adjustments that had been planned prior to the uplift announcement. This baseline was calculated using the headcount as of 31 March 2019, plus the planned recruitment from increased precept allocation, minus any recruitment undertaken prior to March 31 in anticipation of the precept increase and plus or minus any previously planned workforce adjustments.

The total baseline figure across England and Wales was originally calculated at 128,591. Revisions and in-year adjustments have been made for example where forces have lost externally funded posts.

Quarterly Uplift statistics are published via the Home Office on the official government website. The quarterly data tables give figures for planned precept recruitment, baseline figures as well as yearly allocations.

They give total officer headcounts and total new recruits by headcount. These data are further segregated by ethnicity and gender in additional tables.

Each quarter, monthly uplift figures are given demonstrating progress towards the targets.

Some forces also run their recruitment process early in the financial year. As such, they see a spike in uplift position early on which will gradually decrease as the year passes. Some also chose to recruit in excess of their yearly allocation in anticipation of future funding.

For forces who committed to recruit officers in addition to uplift targets, new recruits counting towards uplift will be capped at their uplift target, until they also exceed locally funding recruitment plans, at which point recruits will continue to count towards uplift.

On 3 March, former police staff officer and criminology researcher Mark Brown shared two data tables on Twitter with his attempt to analyse overall recruitment figures including attrition rates in league tables based on the Home Office data.

He explained why: “It was to clarify the anecdotal evidence from officers on social media and elsewhere who were saying they were struggling to keep student officers in the job. I wanted to fathom out where the Uplift programme was.

“The Home Office spreadsheet is confusing because there are fluctuations in preceding months. I also wanted to know in the preceding year how they could get to exactly 6,000.”

In response to his data, Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner David Sidwick shared on social media: “In the calendar years 2020 & 2021 for all police officers joining through the new entry routes (PCDA, DHEP, DHEP DC - excluding transferees and re-joiners) Dorset Police have recruited in total 205 officers. There have been 23 leavers which equates to a 11.2% attrition rate.”

The NPCC asked Mr Brown to take down his data because it was not accurate.

He told Police Oracle: “The figures were there to be challenged. I wasn’t sure if they were correct; that was the point. It wasn’t clear. If it’s not right, what is it?”

The National Police Chiefs’ Council explained that forces have been working independently on recording their own figures.

Janette McCormick, Programme Director for Police Uplift Programme said: “A priority for Uplift was to develop a national approach to police workforce data and statistics.  This is a first for policing and required consistency across force systems and processes to give us hitherto unsighted information on our workforce.” 

“There is no comparison with earlier years at a national level, however when compared to larger and more diverse forces this is at the rate expected, and at the rate modelled in Uplift projections.” 

The questions raised by the sector on the success of Uplift could be independently answered before the summer.

The National Audit Office is due to publish a report this Spring in which they will assess how well the programme is progressing and whether the Home Office is well placed to deliver value for money for the programme.

The summary for the report reads: “The Home Office has committed £1.2bn of additional funding to support police forces’ recruitment and training in the programme’s first two years. The College of Policing and other stakeholders have estimated that forces must recruit 50,000 police nationally across three years to achieve the uplift and cover normal turnover.”

Researcher Mark Brown questioned if forces were on track to meet the government’s final Uplift demand by April next year.

He said: “Is there light at the end of the tunnel? It’s a hard ask and is it going to happen?”

The Uplift team said lessons are rapidly being learnt.

Janette McCormick, Programme Director, said: “Uplift has undertaken extensive research amongst new recruits, with further research planned this year.  Of the 3462 new recruits who took part in the recent anonymous survey, 90% were satisfied with the role, more than 80% said that they were planning to stay until retirement age and less than 1% planned to leave.  Results of this survey have been shared with forces to help evolve training, induction and support.

“Whilst much welcomed, bringing in officers does bring challenges for forces.  The Uplift programme is supporting forces in the attraction, recruitment and retention space to ensure best practice, learning, support and funding is available to help them to meet these challenges.”