MANY Wiltshire Police officers have low morale, feel worse off financially than they did five years ago, and would not recommend the job to others.

More than 500 of the county force’s employees - just under half of the total workforce - replied to a new Pay and Morale survey.

The Police Federation of England and Wales has just published the results of the research, which reveals that 85 per cent of the Wiltshire officers who took part said they are in a worse financial position than in 2017.

Plus, 78 per cent of respondents said they are dissatisfied with their basic pay and allowances, almost all had seen their costs of living increase in the last month (especially food), and 16 per cent said they never or almost never had enough money to cover their essentials.

A whopping 92 per cent of results from Wiltshire said overall morale within the force is low or very low, and just over half of respondents said they personally felt like that.

Nearly two-thirds of the officers said they did not feel valued within the police, 92 per cent said they did not feel respected by the government, and 70 per cent would not recommend that others join the police.

Three-quarters of the officers who took part said their workload has been ‘too high’ in the last year, just over a third received verbal abuse at least once a week, and only nine per cent had access to double crewing ‘at all times’ while on duty.

Unarmed physical attacks - such as struggling to get free, wrestling, hitting, or kicking - were inflicted on 13 per cent of officers on a weekly basis, while 14 per cent suffered injuries requiring medical attention after work-related accidents, and 17 per cent suffered similar injuries due to work-related violence.

Nearly half found the job very or extremely stressful, 77 per cent indicated that their overall physical health is good or very good, and 78 per cent had experienced feelings of stress, low mood, anxiety, or other difficulties with their health.

The most frequently cited reasons for intending to leave Wiltshire Police were morale, how the police are treated by the government, and pay. Around a tenth of respondents told the Federation that they intend to resign from the police service either ‘within the next two years’ or ‘as soon as [they] can’.

The national results paint a similar picture of the state of policing in the UK.