The island’s Chief Constable has warned of a huge ‘exodus’ in experienced staff in two years’ time as the force launches a new recruitment drive.

Isle of Man Constabulary’s top officer Russ Foster told the Constitutional and Legal Affairs and Justice Committee this week he expects to finally reach full strength by September but fears it could be short-lived.

The Chief Constable has previous spoken out about the problems recruiting and retaining officers but said this week ‘recruitment is going in the right direction’.

He told the committee: ‘I assumed the role of Chief Constable on April 1 2023. At that point in time we were 24 officers below our funded strength of 231.

‘Since that time, we have recruited 44 but, equally, we have lost officers to natural wastage, i.e. coming to the end of their 30 years’ service, others have resigned, others have gone on medical retirements. As it stands, we are now nine officers below our funded strength.’

Mr Foster said there are a further 12 officers undergoing training which began on January 6 this year and a further 12 who have just come out of training and are now undergoing on-the-job training.

‘Our ambition is to be up to our funded strength by September 1 this year,’ he said, ‘but it will have taken us just over three years to get there.

‘But this problem is not going to go away. We have done some future projections of retirements and the indication is that, over the next five years, we are going to haemorrhage a number of staff and that does cause me a real challenge.

‘A total of 60% of frontline staff are still on probation so we are losing experience and we are still losing staff which means we are still having to recruit at pace.’

Mr Foster said he was in discussions with the Department of Home Affairs with the proposal to ‘over-recruit beyond the funded strength and have a glide path down to where we stabilise the organisation’.

He said the shortfall of 24 officers put pressure on existing staff which, in turn, accelerated more officers leaving the force.

Mr Foster added: ‘It has a massive impact on the health and wellbeing of our officers and it is incumbent on me to ensure the organisation does not get into that position again.’

He explained the starting salary for a police officer is now £35,000 and will go up to £50,000 after three years.

He also said there is a ‘rejoiner’ scheme allowing retired officers to come back with the same wage but without having to pay into the pension. He said four officers had so far come back under the scheme.

Mr Foster warned there will be a ‘mass exodus’ of staff in 2028/29 when a total of 34 senior officers will reach retirement.

He says he is trying to mitigate that by retaining talent and stepping up training but that will ‘come at a cost’.

He added: ‘We have the talent, it is just untapped at the moment. With the right training and mentoring we will be absolutely fine.

The Isle of Man Constabulary has launched its latest recruitment campaign. There will be drop‑in sessions between 12 and 2pm at the Sea Terminal Costa on Tuesday, February 10 and Thursday, March 5.