Originally Posted by Rob

There is a regulation that allows Chief Constables to require officers of 30 years service to retire. A number of forces have implemented that, not because they want to loose the experience or that the officers are unfit in some way, but because they can get junior officers cheaper, and only have so much of a budget for salaries.

As with all threads calling for cuts to be stopped, the question is simply, where does one get the money from to pay for the increases? The country simply hasn't got the money.

It would be great to have more police on the streets. Perhaps it would be better to be able to dish out tougher penalties on those who are caught so they are out of the way longer enabling fewer officers to go farther? Perhaps one could reduce the paperwork that keeps officers behind their desks, but no that would create too many loopholes for the human rights defence lawyers to run roughshod over. A big problem in ongoing costs is the funding of pensions themselves. All sorts of reasons basically why the police, like so many areas, have to struggle to do the same but with less.