Fed chairman says he is unsurprised by scale of unhappiness among colleagues

Disaffected Met Police officers are suffering from plummeting morale, overwork and a lack of confidence in senior management, a survey carried out by the force itself has shown.

John Tully, Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said his members were “feeling battered” – and continuing to take a pounding in the wake of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Mr Tully was speaking after an internal survey of more than 13,000 officers revealed that only a fifth believed their senior leadership teams were doing a good job while 27 per cent trusted them “to lead with integrity”.

Damningly the poll – which was carried out at the beginning of the year – found that only a third of officers would be confident of receiving a good service from their force if they approached it for help as members of the public.

Mr Tully told PoliceOracle.com that he was unsurprised by the results of the survey, pointing out that they were in line with the views expressed to him by colleagues.

He said: “The results reflect very badly on the Metropolitan Police senior management.

“The impression our members get is that management is bowing down to government policy – although I am sure the commissioner would say differently.”

Mr Tully said it was also telling that only one-in-four of the 50,000 personnel who had received the survey felt it would be worthwhile to complete it.

He added: “It is also pretty damning that only 27 per cent trust the management.

“Federation members feel battered, they cannot get time off and the last 18 months have seen the riots, the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic Games.”

A spokeswoman for the Met said senior management teams were aware that changes to national terms and conditions were having an impact on officers.

The spokeswoman added: “We welcome the (survey) responses, which are extremely important to us as an organisation as we move forward. A number of issues and concerns have been raised and the Metropolitan Police are committed to improve these.

“We are providing staff with updates where there is ongoing work into these issues. We will continue to listen to feedback from our staff and act on it.”

The revelations follow the results of a study conducted for Lord Stevens’ Independent Review of Policing.

The research – carried out by Prof Jennifer Brown of the Manheim Centre for Criminology at the London School of Economics and Political Science – found that half of respondents had considered quitting the service.

Lord Stevens, himself a former Met commissioner, has also expressed serious concern that low morale among officers is impacting badly on the service.