More than 750 police officers recruited by South Yorkshire Police so far

She said: “South Yorkshire Police has made a promising start to the new financial year with regards to recruitment of student police officers.

“As a result of our last successful live application period in September 2020, we exceeded our headcount target for 2020/21 by 119 officers.

“We met our target headcount for 2020/21 at the end of January 2021, while also recruiting under our own uplift plans, which Chief Constable Stephen Watson QPM announced in June 2019, as well as welcoming officers from Police Now and Detective Now schemes. This means that we have actually seen 757 officers join us since we began recruiting two years ago.

“These officers are all at various stages throughout their training, and we’re delighted that more than 550 of these have already been out working in our communities as part of their on the job learning.

“We expect to be opening for applications again in July 2021, however people are able to register their interest to become a police officer now at www.southyorks.police.uk/bethefuture.

“In our last live recruitment period we saw an increase in female applications, as well as applications from within ethnic minority communities. While we are really proud that we are attracting applications from people from diverse backgrounds, we recognise the need to continue to improve representation and we are strongly committed to reflecting the communities we serve. As such, we warmly welcome interest from applicants with diverse experiences and backgrounds to complement our existing service.”

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