Almost half of the officers in Avon & Somerset Police are fresh-faced recruits with less than four years’ experience, it has been revealed. Chief Constable Sarah Crew said that more than 1,500 of the 3,316 currently in the force had joined since the Government launched its police uplift programme in 2019 to recruit an extra 20,000 bobbies in England and Wales by the end of March 2023 following a decade of cuts.
But she said that while the constabulary had exceeded its target set by the Home Office, she understood why the public were still dissatisfied with the force because it took years to train new officers and then even longer to build up the experience and knowledge required from working on the beat. The police chief was answering questions from Police & Crime Commissioner Mark Shelford at the monthly performance and accountability board.
Mr Shelford asked: “Each force was given its own target to meet – the target for Avon & Somerset was a total of 3,291 officers. We are now only three weeks away from that target date, so can you please assure me that we are on target?”
