Officer retention is one of the ‘biggest challenges’ for Thames Valley Police, the force’s police and crime commissioner Matthew Barber has said.

The Conservative official made the comments during a meeting of the Thames Valley Police and Crime Panel in response to questions by Conservative councillor Diana Blamires.

She asked: “The population of Buckinghamshire has gone up by a third, but the number of officers hasn’t. How are we going to fill this gap?

“Also, when we have new staff, we are good at recruiting them, but we are not so good at retaining them. What can be done to improve that?”

In his reply to the questions, Barber said: “We are undeniably in a good place.”

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Thames Valley Police now has 5,120 officers, the highest number in its history, according to the annual police and crime commissioner’s annual report for 2023/24.

Barber said he wanted to ‘hold’ the force’s officer numbers and said he had ‘pushed’ Labour’s new home secretary Yvette Cooper on looking at a review on how funding is divided between forces.

He added: “In terms of retention, that is one of the biggest challenges facing the force and is something that the chief and I look and talk about on a fortnightly basis.”

The police commissioner said that one of the things the force has done to address the issue was setting up a new retention team made up of a small group of officers and staff who look into resolving ‘individual problems’.

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