Police

Question written on 05/01/2009

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) police constables there were in each year since 1997 and (b) police community support officers there were in each year since 1992 in (i) England and (ii) Avon and Somerset constituency.

Answered by David Hanson

The available data can be seen in the following tables.

The first police community support officers started work in September 2002, following legislation which was introduced as part of the Police Reform Act 2002. Therefore, data on police community support officers are not available prior to 31 March 2003.

Police officer strength (FTE)^{( 1)} for England and Avon and Somerset as at 31 March 1997 to 31 March 2009
	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003^{( 3)}
England	118,459	118,138	117,195	115,324	116,440	120,073	124,158
Avon and Somerset	2,989	2,976	2,999	2,934	2,994	3,096	3,149

	2004^{( 3)}	2005^{( 3)}	2006^{( 3)}	2007^{( 3)}	2008^{( 3)}	2009^{( 3)}
England	129,691	131,950	132,105	132,474	132,313	136,481
Avon and Somerset	3,401	3,384	3,389	3,375	3,339	3,303
⁽¹⁾ Full-time equivalent. All officers less staff on career breaks or maternity/paternity leave (comparable with previously published figures). ⁽²⁾ This and other tables contain full-time equivalent figures that have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Because of rounding, there may be an apparent discrepancy between totals and the sums of the constituent items. ⁽³⁾ Comparable strength (excludes those on career breaks, or maternity/paternity leave). the police numbers task force (2001) recommended that a clear presentation was made of the numbers of staff employed by police forces including those seconded into the force and those on any type of long or short term absence. These new calculations were first used in 2003, and are not comparable with data prior to March 2003. The data from 2003 onwards used here are termed comparable because they have been calculated on the old basis to allow comparison

Police community support officer strength^{( 1)} (FTE)^{( 2)} for England and Avon and Somerset as at 31 March 2003 to 31 March 2008^{( 3)}
	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
England	1,146	3,309	5,947	6,499	12,856	15,108	15,802
Avon and Somerset	0	45	139	130	302	377	381
⁽¹⁾ This table contains full-time equivalent figures that have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Because of rounding, there may be an apparent discrepancy between totals and the sums of the constituent items. ⁽²⁾ Full-time equivalent include those on career breaks or maternity/paternity leave. ⁽³⁾ Police community support officers were introduced in statute in 2002, therefore data is not available prior to 2002-03.

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