Bedfordshire Police: Lack of desire to be detective, says officer

Det Supt Zara Brown said she was "proud to hold" the detective badge

A senior police officer whose team investigates rape and domestic abuse has said she believes there is a lack of desire to be a detective.

Det Supt Zara Brown, Bedfordshire Police's head of public protection, said there was a national shortage.

She said staff "continuously punch above their weight... whilst under an inadequate funding formula".

The Home Office said it was recruiting an additional 20,000 police officers by March 2023.

Detectives are typically non-uniformed individuals who investigate crimes.

Det Supt Brown said her team, which is also involved in child protection cases, was "the most important work I have ever been involved with".

"The detective badge is something I'm incredibly proud to hold. I've been a career detective my whole career spanning 21 years and I feel that there needs to be some incentive in terms of 'what does it mean to be a detective?'.

"These roles hold a lot of high harm, high pressure."

According to minutes from a Bedfordshire crime board meeting in March, Det Supt Brown's team, Emerald, were "carrying a number of vacancies".

She said: "It seems to be that there isn't a desire to be a detective at the moment and that's something that we are really striving to work towards."

Det Ch Supt Julie Henderson said Bedfordshire had a "fairly inexperienced workforce"

Bedfordshire's chief of staff, Det Ch Supt Julie Henderson, said it was "competing in a market with lots of other roles that might offer more than we can offer, in terms of money".

"We've got the right amount of officers we need, what we are short of is experience so those officers are younger in service, they've got less experience than previous and we're now looking to upskill them as quickly as we can to give them the skills they need to do the best job they can for Bedfordshire," she said.

Earlier this month, Bedfordshire's police and crime commissioner was one of eight in southern England to voice "grave concerns" about the impact of the Metropolitan Police's recruitment methods on other areas.

According to Home Office figures, as of 31 March, Bedfordshire Police recruited 134 additional officers through the police uplift programme and has been allocated 72 additional officers in the final year of uplift.

A Home Office spokesman said: "We are putting more police on our streets to keep our communities safe, through the Beating Crime Plan the police will have the powers and tools they need to stop crimes happening in the first place and keep serious offenders behind bars for longer.

"More than 13,500 additional officers have already been recruited across England and Wales and we are on track to deliver our commitment to recruit 20,000."