IFS study on police officer retention in England and Wales

Tuesday, 3 January 2017 20:58

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a study on police officer retention in England and Wales. Key findings Police force numbers are driven by changing entry rates, not exit rates Police officers are not employees, as in other occupations. The absence of a contract of employment implies, among other things, that police...Request free trial

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published a study on police officer retention in England and Wales.

Key findings

Police force numbers are driven by changing entry rates, not exit rates

Police officers are not employees, as in other occupations.		The absence of a contract of employment implies, among other things, that police officers cannot be made redundant.
Changes in police officer numbers are largely driven by changes in the entry rate.		Police officer numbers rose sharply between 2001 and 2005, and contracted between 2010 and 2013. Exit rates changed little over time.

Which officers leave, and what do they do next?

The primary exit route for police officers is through ordinary retirement via the police pension schemes.		Over the period 2004–05 to 2014–15, 62% of police officer exits from the force were ordinary retirements, while 7% were early retirements on the grounds of ill health. Less than one-third (27%) were voluntary resignations from the police force.
Most police retire from the labour force on leaving the police service; those who remain in the labour force choose a variety of occupations.		Of the third that leave the police (either through retirement or for other reasons) and continue in employment, 15% continue in protective services or elementary security occupations. However, the majority go to occupations not directly related to policing, including administrative and secretarial (25%) and associate professional and technical (19%) occupations.
Leaving rates differ across police forces and this variation reflects the relative attractiveness of alternative occupations.		We show that better outside local labour market opportunities (higher wages and lower unemployment rates) are statistically significantly associated with higher resignation rates across police forces. Those forces geographically close to London also have higher rates of exit through transfers. We find no evidence that variation in crime rates and workload affect exit from the police service.

Introduction

The labour market in England and Wales for police officers is unusual in two respects. First, unlike virtually all other occupations in the UK, police officers have security of tenure. Police officers are not employees, but officers under the Crown, and there are no provisions for making police officers redundant. Hence, fluctuations in the size of the police officer workforce are largely driven by changes in entry rates rather than exit rates over time. Second, the requirement that an active police officer should be ‘fully deployable’ over a whole range of activities has underpinned a relatively young ‘normal age of retirement’ in police pension schemes relative to most other occupations.

These two characteristics of the police labour market imply that standard analyses of employee retirement in other occupations are less pertinent to police officers. Exit rates are not very sensitive to aggregate fluctuations in public spending or the aggregate business cycle. In addition, many police officers do not retire from the labour force on leaving the police. Nevertheless, local conditions may be an important factor in considering retention and exit strategies of police officers. This briefing note therefore considers retention in the police force: who leaves the police, what they go on to do, and how retention differs across the individual police forces of England and Wales.