Police Federation warns officer figures 'misleading'

19 April 2023

Policing minister Chris Philp said officer numbers across England and Wales were expected to reach the highest levels in history when new figures are announced next week.

Mr Philp told GMB he was confident that records would be broken when the latest data is published on 26 April.

He said: “There is going to be an announcement next week and I am confident it will show that we will have record numbers of police - more police than we have ever had at any point in the history of England and Wales.

“The previous high  point was in March 2010 when there were about 145,000 police officers in England and Wales and I am expectantly confident that when the figures are published next week we will have comfortably exceeded that previous high point.”

But Nottinghamshire Police Federation chair Simon Riley said claims of record numbers of officers could be misleading.

He said: “We have said all along that the Police Uplift Programme has simply replaced the hundreds of experienced officers we have lost since the funding cuts began and when the figures come out next week they will show we have returned to those 2010.

“And if you take into account the loss of other policing resources such as back office operations and also the rise in population over the last 13 years then we are really no better off than we were.”

Simon also warned that officer retention was still a major issue.

“We have to make sure all our new officers are properly looked after by the Force and that starts with fair pay and conditions,” he said.

“We have always said that recruitment was only half the battle and that keeping hold of young officers would be a challenge.”

Nottinghamshire Police and Crime Commissioner Caroline Henry has vowed to maintain the county’s police officer numbers at 2,378 which meets the Government's Police Uplift Programme recruitment target.

Mr Philp refused to speculate on the precise figure expected to be unveiled next week but insisted the number of officers in England and Wales would be “some margin higher, some thousands higher”.

The minister blamed previous administrations when confronted with evidence that police numbers went down by more than 20,000 between 2010 and 2017 when, according to the Home Office, there were just 121,929 officers.

Mr Philp said: “The reason police officer numbers fell in the years immediately after 2010 - and there were spending constraints in other public services as well  - is because the outgoing Labour government left the country essentially bankrupt and George Osborne had to take difficult decisions to put it back in order.

“Since we have managed to get the economy into better shape, we have been able to fund additional police officers to make up for not just those who were unfortunately reduced, but we are going to go beyond that and have more officers than we had in 2010.”