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In recent years, Staffordshire police have lost more than a quarter of their officers due to budget cuts. In this final episode, the officers look to the future as they take on new recruits.

At the end of 2019, the government pledged to train 20,000 new police officers, and Staffordshire police are going to be receiving some of these new recruits. One of them is trainee Holly Swift. After working in mental health services and seeing the difference police officers can make, Holly has decided it is the career for her.

At the other end of the career path is Sergeant Dave Allan, who is just about to complete 30 years of service and retire. The police service recruited heavily after the miners' strikes in the 1980s, and many of those officers are now approaching retirement. And whilst the new young officers don’t have the experience of the retirees, they do have more experience of the changing nature of crime, particularly online and cyber-crime.

With the police stretched, some members of the public feel their crime is not being dealt with as they would like – and this leads some to take matters into their own hands. After seeing a rise in motorbike thefts in their area, a group of bikers have set up North Staffordshire Bike Watch to track down stolen bikes.

As police staff have been cut and crime has changed, Staffordshire Police have changed the way they are responding to crime. Many crimes that don’t need an immediate response are now dealt with by police officers on the telephone in the resolution centre. Around 15 per cent of the police demand in Staffordshire is now dealt with in this way – people report a crime and a police officer phones them back, collecting evidence and resolving any issues over the telephone.

Stoke-on-Trent, and the police force who serve it, is in a time of transition. This series explores the highs and lows of working in one of the most demanding and challenging jobs in the UK.