Rise in number of cops moonlighting because their pay isn’t enough

Soaring numbers of police officers are taking second jobs to make ends meet.

The number declaring ‘business interests’ has more than doubled over the past four years.

Among the moonlighting bobbies is a bagpiper, an airgun coach, a magician, a preacher, a microbrewery owner and a football scout.

The revelation comes after police pay and conditions were changed with starting salaries slashed to £19,000 in many parts of the country.

Critics claim officers are moonlighting because their take-home pay isn’t enough.

Steve White, chairman of the Police Federation, said: “The starting salary of an officer in the Metropolitan Police Force is now £21,000. Making enough is very challenging and I think they realise working 40 hours a week as a police officer is not giving them the income to survive.”

The Sunday Post asked 43 police forces in England and Wales for the number of officers and staff who had registered a business interest in each of the last four years.

The 18 forces that were able to provide the year-on-year data revealed during 2009/10 1,800 officers and staff had registered an interest but, in 2012/13, 4,200 had declared second jobs.

Recent estimates by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary found at least 23,000 police officers do work on the side, which was equivalent to one in 10 across England and Wales.

Among the second jobs registered during 2013/14 in Lancashire was a PC who doubles as a football scout, another who works as a game-beater at shoots and an officer who set up a microbrewery.

In Lincolnshire a PC works also works as a preacher, in Hampshire a PC doubles as a bagpiper and an inspector has a sideline as an airgun coach.

In Durham an inspector works as a caterer and a PC is a landscape gardener.

Nottinghamshire Police has a beekeeping PC among its ranks and Thames Valley employs an officer who doubles as a freelance model, while one of its civilian staff is a wrestler.

Mr White added: “Historically, you joined it as a vocation and wanted to have a career in the police.

“But the way it has changed in terms of pay and working conditions means they are pausing and thinking: ‘Hang on a minute, there’s a world outside the police’.”

Officers and staff are required to declare any outside business interests which are reviewed by senior staff and placed on the register if it is agreed they do not conflict with their police role.

Labour’s shadow policing minister Jack Dromey said: “It’s bad enough we have seen 16,000 police officers cut by this Government, without over-stretched police men and women having to moonlight to make ends meet.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “There is no question that policing remains an attractive and well-paid career.

“Police forces have higher application rates for vacancies, higher retention rates and a more generous pension than many comparable workforces in the public and private sector.”