Police reform is dominating the pages of The Times, and rightly so. But amid talk of more officers and new technology we are ignoring the elephant in the room: the chronic failure to address historically low pay and, as a result, the retention crisis facing police forces across England and Wales.

We welcome the ambition to improve and make policing more effective. But a functioning force requires frontline officers to be paid a fair wage for the heavy responsibility placed on their shoulders.

We are on track to lose 10,000 officers a year. The proportion of officers with less than five years' experience has jumped by a third since 2019. We are haemorrhaging talent, as long-serving officers walk away because they simply can't afford to stay. Newer officers quit after just a few years on the beat because their pay (£29,907 starting salary outside London) cannot meet the cost of starting a family.

The government insists it is recruiting, but it takes years to train an officer properly. Replacing the officers likely to leave in the next five years will cost some £10 billion. It is the public purse and public safety which will suffer if we cannot halt this exodus. It isn't just a staffing issue, it's a public safety catastrophe.

New recruits, however committed, cannot replace the expertise, judgment and calmness under pressure that only experience brings. Ambitious pledges to reduce knife crime and violence against women ring hollow when the very infrastructure of policing is under siege. Detection rates for burglary are at historic lows. Rape victims wait years for justice. Serious assaults and robberies have risen since 2010, but experienced detectives to solve them have vanished.

Beneath the surface lies a more troubling picture. Mental health within the ranks is in serious decline, with post-traumatic and chronic stress now commonplace. At least 20 officers take their own lives each year.

Officers are increasingly taking on second jobs — driving private hire vehicles or delivering takeaway food — to make ends meet. Some are forced to rely on food banks. Such conditions, once unthinkable for public servants charged with maintaining law and order, reflect a deeper malaise.

The Police Federation's Copped Enough campaign has issued a stark warning: without urgent investment in officer pay and a comprehensive strategy to retain experience within the service, no reform agenda can succeed. Until ministers and police leadership confront the financial realities, promises of transformation will remain just that — promises.