Police service sees overall increase in officer numbers but some forces cut back

Police officer numbers for England and Wales have increased overall in the last year, according to the latest National Statistics, but not all forces have experienced the increase.

Overall officer numbers have increased by 1.5 per cent between September 2008 and September 2009, up by 2,121 officers. But across the 43 forces in England and Wales the picture is varied.

Twenty forces experienced a decrease in officer numbers for the same period. For Surrey and Humberside this was a 4.5 per cent and 4.4 per cent decrease respectively. Significant figures when five other forces saw an increase of three per cent or more. The greatest increase was in the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), where officer strength rose by 5.7 per cent – up from 31,109 to 32,904.

A similar picture was evident in police staff numbers. Between the 43 forces a three per cent increase has been seen in the last year, representing a further 2,350 full-time staff. Only eight forces experienced a decrease in this area, but for Devon and Cornwall and Wiltshire Police, these were significant drops of 10.8 per cent and 7.6 per cent respectively. Warwickshire Police, however, saw a 15.9 per cent staff increase, closely followed by North Wales Police who employed 12.6 per cent more staff.

A Devon and Cornwall Police spokesperson said that the fall in staff was the result of restructuring, which returned 200 officers to the front line and included a review of corporate services including HR, finance and administration.

“The restructuring was designed to improve efficiency but also involved reducing police staff costs by reducing the number employed. In the majority of cases this was achieved through natural wastage, but a small number of redundancies had to be made,” the spokesperson said.

Warwickshire Police also attributed the staffing increase to restructuring, stating that there were a number of police officer posts which no longer required police powers and so could be carried out by police staff at a lesser cost.

The force added that an ongoing review into more efficient working had led to a number of contract workers becoming directly employed by Warwickshire Police, adding to the apparent increase in staff.

Police community support officers (PCSOs) also increased across the board, by a total of 6.8 per cent. Northumbria Police appears to have expanded exceptionally in this area, with PCSO numbers increasing from 232 to 436 in the last year, an 87.7 per cent increase. However, head of resources, Joscelin Lawson, said this was due to a change in the way data was recorded by the force.

The only other force to come close to such growth was Suffolk Police, which saw numbers rise by 28.7 per cent. Ten forces saw reductions in their number of PCSOs. South Yorkshire Police and Cheshire Police saw the most significant cuts, losing 7.5 per cent and six per cent of their PCSOs respectively.

Only four forces saw reductions in both staff and officer numbers: Staffordshire, City of London, Hampshire and Gwent.

Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) lead on finance, Chief Constable Grahame Maxwell, said: “All forces are acutely aware of the need to utilise the public purse in the most effective manner in order to support and protect front line service delivery.

“The statistics reflect the impact of the recession and forces have had to position themselves for the challenges ahead. There is no doubt that chief constables face some tough choices in the near future, and need to be radical and innovative in our thinking, to ensure we continue to deliver the policing service the public both expect and demand.”

Police forces in Scotland have seen the same overall increase of officer numbers, with a slight decrease in the third quarter of 2009. Overall officer numbers between September 2008 and September 2009 rose by 4.2 per cent, a further 641 officers. The only force to see a reduction was Central Scotland Police, who saw numbers go down by 3.8 per cent, from