'The police service is living hand to mouth' | Anonymous police officer

I’ve already been at work for 10 hours and should have been home by now, but I am only five miles away from an emergency call; the next available police officer is 30 miles away. It’s a dilemma that has long since taught my family that I’ll be home “when I’m home”.

If you had asked me 10 years ago, I would have said then that there were not enough police officers to deal with all the demands placed upon the service: the emergency calls, routine crime investigation, missing or suicidal people. Today, there are fewer officers in my force than at any time during my 20 years in the police. Since 2010, the number of police officers in England and Wales has fallen by 19,668. Frankly, there weren’t enough of us in 2010 and you cannot cut almost 20,000 officers and 5,875 police community support officers and expect the same level of service.

I have heard the government proclaim that the proportion of frontline officers has increased. This is very carefully chosen language, worthy of that fictional civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby himself. Take this example: if you had five red sweets and five yellow sweets, and took away four yellow and two red, you would have only four sweets left, but the proportion of red sweets would have increased.

I can absolutely confirm the number of uniformed frontline officers has decreased significantly. In my town, there were 18 beat officers 10 years ago. There are now four. It is neighbourhood policing that has taken the hit but detectives and response team are under equally unrelenting pressure and most support teams have gone. The reduction of officers and staff in non-frontline roles has forced frontline cops back into the office to pick up the paperwork that used to be done for them.

Six years ago, police performance meant cutting crime and detecting offences. Performance for police leaders now means getting through the month with the resources they have, prioritising what to investigate and what to not, trying to cut demand and respond to what they can. The service is living hand to mouth. Every day there are more calls and more crimes to investigate than there are officers available.

The Home Office will tell us it has protected police budgets, but we all know a protected budget makes no allowance for increasing wage bills or inflation. And we are only now finishing the cuts handed to forces in 2010.

Some will point to a fall in crime to justify fewer officers: this argument holds little water. Crime accounts for only 25% of police demand. In a typical shift, my teams may deal with no crime at all: road accidents, drink drivers, missing people, unexploded world war two bombs or suicidal people are all public safety issues not crimes. And while some crime, like vehicle crime or shoplifting, has fallen, violent and sexual offences, which are more complex to investigate, are now on the rise again.

Every week I receive letters from the public or councillors asking what we are doing about speeding in their street, rowdy revellers leaving pubs and drunk vagrants in the town centre. I try my best to direct some officers to their problem but in truth, the answer is “not a lot”. Whereas 10 years ago we would direct spare resources to hotspots, these days there are always outstanding calls, always crimes piling up to investigate. The service we provide is woefully inadequate – but not for the want of trying.

I calculated recently that with 33% more officers, I could provide a reasonable level of service in my county, that would allow us to get the emergency calls, investigate the crimes and be active against organised gangs of drugs dealers or paedophiles.

The Home Office might believe that it’s not numbers that count but how you use them. I’m unsure that sentiment is shared by those who have called 999 and wait for an emergency response from 20 miles away, or those who report a crime to find that no-one is coming out and it will be filed without investigation.

The irony is that I agree we should eliminate the deficit and start paying back some of our country’s debt. I just think cuts to the police have gone too far. My only hope is that in coming parliaments investment returns to the police.

This series aims to give a voice to the staff behind the public services that are hit by mounting cuts and rising demand, and so often denigrated by the press, politicians and public. If you would like to write an article for the series, contact kirstie.brewer@theguardian.com

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