- Conference
- 2025 Police, Probation and CAFCASS Conference
- Date
- 9 June 2025
- Decision
- Carried
Conference, in July 2019 the Conservative government announced plans to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers in England and Wales by the end of March 2023. The Home Office established the Police Uplift Programme which instructed Forces how to achieve this. The Current Labour government has decided to continue with what we believe is a failed programme.
The programme effectively ties Chief Constables’ hands in that they must maintain a prescribed number of Police Officers otherwise Forces are subjected to financial penalties, but at the same time government is making cuts to their budgets. This has resulted in Forces being left with no other choice but to cut Police Staff numbers to balance the books.
When the previous government announced the Uplift Programme it was sold to the public as an additional 20,000 Police Officers dealing with crime, working on the streets of England and Wales dealing with the issues that blight people’s lives.
Conference we know the reality is that a good number of these Police Officers have ended up being placed into Police Staff roles and those roles either disestablished as a vacancy or the post holder redeployed or made redundant.
Since the Uplift Programme began just in the North West alone the five Forces have disestablished over 1350 Police Staff vacancies, over 200 Police Staff at risk of redundancy, there has been over 50 redundancies and shockingly over 170 fully fit Police officers placed into Police Staff roles.
Andy Cooke, Chief Inspector of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services stated the following in his 2023 Annual State of Policing Report.
“I am concerned this objective of maintaining numbers is creating an arbitrary target that will increase inefficiency. Many chief constables who wrote to me said that this is causing them to cut down on the number of police staff members they employ. This means that more officers are performing tasks that can and should be conducted by police staff – something referred to as ‘reverse civilianisation’.
“Police staff are often specialists who fulfil vital roles for forces – roles which are frequently not best suited to police officers. This includes areas where special education or training is required, such as data science, analysis and digital forensics. The police staff in these and other similar areas are on the frontline of the fight against crime. No arbitrary target should prevent chief constables from having the right people in their forces.”
“Officers should mainly be working in roles where their warranted powers are required. But reverse civilianisation means that some police staff roles must either be fulfilled by police officers or dissolved and the work that still needs to be done spread out among police officers. Either option creates inefficiencies because police officers are generally paid more than police staff at their equivalent grades because of the warranted powers they hold.”
“Chief Constables should assure themselves and the inspectorate that their workforce mix of officers and staff is achieving the best value for money as well as supporting their policing priorities and the communities they serve.”
So far, the previous and present governments have chosen to ignore the recommendations made in Andy Cooke’s report.
Conference is calling for the end of the Uplift Programme and a return to workforce modernisation.
Conference believes this will allow Chief Constables to balance their workforce mix making sure that Police Officers are employed in roles that require warranted Police powers.
Conference calls on the SGE to:
1. Continue to prioritise and grow the We are Police Staff campaign, with a view to increasing the exposure of the campaign both internally within UNISON and externally to the public;
2. Specifically target the We are Police Staff campaign at politicians;
3. Engage with the National Police Chiefs Council, Association of Police and Crime Commissioners or elected Mayors where applicable and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, and Fire and Rescue Services to promote the We are Police Staff campaign and seek their support.