STA, March 3, 2018 – Just like the Slovenian army, the police force, which has a workforce of more than 8,100, has been severely understaffed for years, with individual police departments currently lacking 20-30% of police officers.
The situation is still manageable, but new staff will definitively have to hired, according to the General Police Department.
To cope with the shortage, the police force currently resorts to temporary transfers from one police department to another, or calls in reserve police officers.
Faced with the severest shortage are several police departments around the country as well as traffic police units.
There are also not enough policemen to control the Schengen border.
The police force numbered 8,177 at the end of January. But excluding those working abroad (international missions, Europol, Frontex etc), the figure actually stood at 8,152.
The latter figure, however, also included 231 police students currently on a two-year course at the Police Academy, who are formally employed, but do not work yet.
The police says that to meet its staffing plan, it would need another 247 policemen.
The police force's own job classification envisages 10,459 jobs, but the government-endorsed staffing plan allows for only 8,186.
To improve the situation, the police and the Interior Ministry have been working on a set of measures, so the government has recently allowed the police to employ internees and police students.
This effectively means that it has increased the number of staff envisaged in the staffing plan by 107.
However, given that police students are still at school, this is a long-term measure expected to bring results only in a few years' time.
The police are nevertheless happy the trend of falling employment from recent years, prompted by austerity measures adopted due to the economic crisis, has stopped.
The police force has shrunk from 8,488 in 2012 to 8,169 this year, hitting the eight-year bottom with 8,074 in 2014.
The Slovenian police is organised in eight police departments and the Ljubljana-based General Police Department with a workforce of around 1,560.
The police departments are seated in Ljubljana, Maribor, Celje, Koper, Kranj, Murska Sobota, Nova Gorica and Novo Mesto, and have some 6,610 staff.
