Diane Abbott's Agonising Interview Over Police Policy Cost [Car crash interview]

The £80 million figure is at least close to the amount that it would cost to recruit 10,000 officers over four years at their basic pay. The current starting salary for a PC is currently just over £19k. Simple maths, assuming constant daily recruitment, shows that just paying the officers this much would cost around £95 million over the four years (19k * 10,000 / 2). If you recruit in waves, and they're not timed at the beginning of each year, you could conceivably get that figure down to £80 million. At the very least, it's not a terrible estimate.

But those recruited early in the period will be earning thousands more by the end of it, because you don't stay on the starting salary forever. It goes up to £37k after around seven years in the job. When you factor this in, the bill will probably be significantly into the £100+ million range over the four-year period.

And a decade down the line, assuming they all stay in the job long enough to earn the top rate, the bill will end up being £370 million per year (10,000 officers * £37k salary). And even this even assumes that there's no increased need for sergeants and inspectors (who are paid more) to oversee all the extra PCs.

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