Surf scheme therapy for police officers challenged
WITH Cornish householders paying extra council tax to fund policing and officer numbers still not back to their preausterity level, a policeman’s wife has voiced her horror at discovering 10 full-time officers are being funded to run surfing lessons rather than fight crime – at a potential cost to the public of more than £450,000 a year.
A response to her Freedom of Information (FOI) request reveals that ‘Operation Surfwell’, which offers surfing as therapy for emergency services personnel and has been running for three years, cost £68,348 in 2021-22, exclusive of staffing costs – likely to be a further £400,000-plus.
Roughly half the bill was met from the force budget and the rest from grants (£32,382) and income from running courses (£5,530).
Ten full-time ‘sworn or warranted’ staff are assigned to the project, with a further five performing a “resilience function” on a limited number of days. Devon and Cornwall Police describes this as “a reallocation of resources” rather than an additional cost.
The officer’s wife, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “My husband is a police officer who’s constantly under pressure due to lack of staff and being run between job and job.
“He told me about Op Surfwell, which is a mental heath surf programme set up by the force, but I was disgusted to know that regular police officers have been taken off frontline duties to surf when I believe something like this could be outsourced.
“The FOI has identified that 10 regular/sworn officers are full-time with the team, meaning they’re not out fighting crime, but instead surfing.
“I worked out that most officers will be at the top end of their PC salaries, meaning a wage bill of over £400,000 per year spent on officers surfing. How is this good value for money?
“If these 10 officers were working back in police stations, realising the pressures that working PCs face on a daily basis, this would be a much better use of taxpayers’ money. Members of the public would be horrified”.
Asked whether officers had travelled overseas as part of Operation Surfwell, a force spokesperson replied: “Devon and Cornwall Police were very fortunate to receive an invitation for two officers to be hosted for several days by a US military surf therapy programme in early 2019.
“The offer of assistance to help develop and establish the Surfwell programme was considered invaluable at that stage so two members of staff were authorised to attend the USA”.
Sergeant James Mallows, who leads the project lead, said Operation Surfwell supported the wellbeing of staff and officers, had life-changing physiological and psychological effects, was developed with the help of academic experts and had been rigorously assessed “to ensure the abstraction of officers is not only the best way to structure the programme but is also sustainable”. The officers involved did not themselves surf.
“Many of the hundreds of staff who have accessed this programme have highlighted how important it has been to be able to speak to a colleague who understands the trauma and stress they have experienced”, he said, “and independent studies had verified its effectiveness, with more staff able to return to work than were involved in delivering the programme. Some staff had reported that Operation Surfwell had prevented them taking their own lives, and organisations and charities across the country had invested in it because of its results.”