Police officer uplift, England and Wales, quarterly update to 30 September 2020

Question 1

1.  Introduction

Accepted Answer

A manifesto commitment of the current Government was a pledge to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers in England and Wales by 31 March 2023. This release provides information on progress towards the recruitment of these officers and data are provided for each territorial police force in England and Wales on a monthly basis. Furthermore, this release also contains information on the gender and ethnicity of police officers in post, and, for the first time in this series, the gender and ethnicity of new recruits since April 2020.

The guidance issued to forces for the collection of police uplift data matches that issued for the existing statistical series ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’, which is published on a biannual basis.

Though data in this bulletin are released as official statistics, they have not yet been assessed for designation as National Statistics by the Office for Statistics Regulation .

While this release provides a provisional quarterly update on the number of police officers (headcount) in England and Wales, it is not intended to replace the long running statistical series ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’, which also contains information on other police workers. The data released in the biannual ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ have been designated as National Statistics^{[footnote 1]}, and users are therefore encouraged to use those data to analyse police numbers. The biannual release provides a snapshot of officer numbers on both a full-time equivalent (FTE) and headcount basis as at 31 March and 30 September each year, as well as more detailed breakdowns on joiners and leavers.

Table 1.1 provides information on the content of both statistical series.

Table 1.1: ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ and ‘Police officer uplift’ statistical bulletins

	Police workforce, England and Wales	Police officer uplift, England and Wales
Frequency of release	Biannually (July and January)	Quarterly (July, October, January, April)
Period covered	Data at 31-Mar and 30-Sept each year	Data at the end of the preceding quarter
Workforce covered	Police forces in England and Wales, British Transport Police, and National Crime Agency	Police forces in England and Wales
Measurement	FTE and headcount	Headcount

The statistics cover all the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales.

In line with the established statistical series used for measuring the size and composition of the police workforce (‘Police workforce, England and Wales’), figures quoted in this bulletin include those on career breaks or other forms of long term absence, as well as those seconded in to police forces from other forces. It excludes those seconded out from forces to central services (such as the Home Office, the National Crime Agency etc.).

1.1 Headcount versus full-time equivalent

Our headline workforce statistics (published biannually) report on officers on both a full-time equivalent (FTE) and a headcount basis. However, given that headcount is the most appropriate way to measure and track the recruitment processes which relate to individuals (e.g. applications, vetting, assessment centres), this release reports on officers on a headcount basis only. There is a relatively small difference between headcount and FTE figures. The most recently published police workforce statistics, Police workforce, England and Wales: 31 March 2020, showed that as at 31 March 2020, the police officer headcount was 131,576 and the FTE was 129,110 – a 2% difference. For new recruits, the difference in the two measures is likely to be even smaller as most new joiners tend to start on a full-time basis.

1.2 Seasonal effects

Once a force surpasses their baseline level (see chapter 2) new officers will start counting towards their uplift allocation. As there is a flow of officers joining and leaving the police service each month, the number of officers counting towards uplift can both increase and decrease over the course of a year. For example, if in a given month more officers leave than join, the number of officers counting towards uplift would decrease compared with the previous month.

Some forces plan to run the majority of their recruitment at a particular point in the year as it may be more efficient to do so, whereas other forces may choose to recruit more consistently and continuously throughout the year. These decisions will vary depending on the size and composition of the force and the volume of new officers they are seeking to recruit. Therefore, while this release reports on the position of each force at the end of each month, it should not be used to compare the progress of one force against another.

1.3 Exceeding the year one allocation and local recruitment

Since the baseline does not account for locally planned recruitment and adjustments made after the 2019-20 financial year, recruitment under funds raised through 2020-21 local precept^{[footnote 2]} flexibility (as well as recruitment funded by other means) must be taken into account when calculating the number of uplift officers.

For forces who have made a commitment to recruit additional officers in addition to their uplift officers (through local funds), the number of officers counting towards uplift is initially capped at their year one allocation. If the force continues to recruit and then also exceeds the recruitment plans under local funds, additional officers will then continue to count towards uplift.

Where forces have exceeded their year 1 allocation, they have chosen to continue recruitment in anticipation of funding for future years of the programme. Allocation decisions for 2021-22 and 2022-23 have yet to be announced.

See chapter 2 for more details.

1.4 Data collection and publication

Home Office statisticians have worked closely with police colleagues working on the Police Uplift Programme to collect and quality assure data for this publication. Data are sourced from police forces’ Human Resource systems and are collected on a monthly basis from each of the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales.

Data are published on a quarterly basis in April, July, October, and January, each year, for the duration of this recruitment drive. The aim is that each bulletin provides provisional data for the most recent quarter, and finalised data for earlier quarters. Therefore, each successive release should finalise the preceding quarter’s provisional information and supersede previous editions in the series. Table 1.2 shows revisions made since the last quarterly release.

Table 1.2: Summary of monthly headcount revisions

Month	Headcount published in ‘quarter to June 2020’ bulletin	Updated Headcount	Difference (Headcount)
Apr-20	131,857	131,858	+1
May-20	132,200	132,200	-
Jun-20	133,131	133,131	-

1.5 Additional data sources

The data in this release can be found in the ‘[Police officer uplift, England and Wales, September 2020](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-officer-uplift-quarterly-update-to-september-2020}’ data tables.

Future editions in this series will be available on the statistical collection page ‘Police officer uplift statistics’.

National Statistics on the police workforce, including full-time equivalent (FTE) figures and information on other worker types, are published biannually in the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin.

Question 2

2.  Allocations and Baseline

Accepted Answer

2.1 Baseline

The first release, Police officer uplift, quarterly update to March 2020, in this statistical series, published on 30 April 2020, set out the methodology for calculating a starting figure (or baseline) against which the recruitment of an additional 20,000 officers would be measured.

While the announcement to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers in England and Wales was made in September 2019, the methodology explained why the police workforce statistics as at 30 September 2019 (published 30 January 2020) have not been used as the baseline.

The methodology explains that prior to the announcement, and following planned local council tax precept increases, most forces already had plans to adjust their officer numbers in the 2019-20 financial year. There were also some forces who planned workforce reductions. Therefore, the police workforce statistics as at 30 September 2019 would not capture all adjustments, and some pre-planned recruitment (such as Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) announced precept recruitment) may already have been reflected in those figures.

Therefore it was proposed to take the headcount figures from the Police Workforce figures as at 31 March 2019 and make adjustments to allow for planned increases and reductions within the 2019-20 financial year to derive a baseline. This methodology ensures that any previously planned adjustments are accounted for when calculating officer uplift. Furthermore, police forces are required to backfill any leavers throughout the duration of the campaign in order for the recruitment goals to be met.

This means that the calculated baseline is the number of officers that each force must maintain. Only when forces exceed the baseline level will newly recruited officers count towards their uplift allocations. Figure 2.1 summarises the methodology described above to calculate a baseline for each force.

Figure 2.1: Methodology for calculating a baseline figure

Headcount as at 31 March 2019
PLUS
Planned recruitment from increased precept allocation
MINUS
Recruitment undertaken prior to 31 March 2019 in anticipation of precept increase
PLUS or MINUS
Any other previously planned workforce adjustment
=
Baseline figure

As explained in the last quarterly update, Police officer uplift, quarterly update to June 2020, revisions have been made to the starting figure of three police forces since the baseline was set. Furthermore, in-year adjustments have been made where forces have lost externally funded posts (for example, posts transferring out of the force to the National Crime Agency).

Following the in-year adjustment, the figure for which recruitment of an additional 20,000 officers is measured is now 128,472. From here on this figure is referred to as the adjusted baseline. It is expected that small adjustments may be made throughout the duration of the recruitment campaign as externally funded posts move from one organisation to another.

Detailed figures for each Police Force Area, including in-year adjustments, can be found in Table B1 of the accompanying data tables.

Further details on the baseline methodology can be found in the statistical note ‘Plans for statistical reporting on progress with the recruitment of an additional 20,000 police officers in England and Wales’.

2.2 Allocations

Following the announcement of the Government commitment to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers by March 2023, the Home Office published details of the first phase to recruit up to 6,000 additional officers by the end of March 2021. Information on the allocations given to individual police forces can be found in Table B1. Allocation decisions for 2021-22 and 2022-23 have yet to be announced.

2.3 What counts as uplift?

Each police force has a baseline figure, and an allocation of additional officers to recruit by March 2021 (Table B1). Police forces are required to backfill any leavers throughout the duration of the campaign in order for the recruitment goals to be met.

Exceeding the allocation and 2020-21 precept

Some forces have recruited more officers over and above their year one uplift allocation. There are a number of reasons for this:

While allocation decisions for 2021-22 and 2022-23 have yet to be announced, some forces have chosen to recruit in excess of their year one allocation in anticipation of receipt of uplift funding in future years
Some forces have decided to run the majority of their recruitment early in the current financial year as it may be more efficient to run a single recruitment exercise rather than continuously through the year; these forces will therefore see a spike in their headcount, as well as their uplift position, which will reduce as the year progresses as they have profiled to return to their allocation level as other officers leave the service
Some forces also have plans to recruit additional officers through local funds, such as 2020-21 council tax precept; while the baseline takes into account additional recruitment under 2019-20 precept, 2020-21 precept and other adjustments were not accounted for at the time, as the decisions had not yet been made; in this situation the difference between the headcount figure and the baseline figure could be greater than the uplift allocation since the additional officers are not funded through the uplift programme, and rather through local funds

In scenarios one and two, officers in excess of the year one allocation are still counted towards uplift progress, since they are to be funded through this route. In scenario 3, since the baseline does not account for planned recruitment and adjustments following the 2019-20 financial year, recruitment under funds raised through 2020-21 council tax precept (as well as recruitment funded by other means) must be taken into account when calculating the number of uplift specific officers.

For forces who have made a commitment to recruit additional officers in addition to their uplift officers (through local funds), the number of officers counting towards uplift is initially capped at their year one allocation. If the force continues to recruit and then also exceeds the locally funded recruitment plans, any further additional officers will then continue to count towards uplift and as in scenario 1, these additional uplift officers are recruited in anticipation of uplift funding for future years.

For example:

Force A has a year one allocation of 50 officers, and plans to recruit a further 25 officers through local funding. Force A has a baseline figure of 1,000 and a current headcount of 1,060.

The difference between the current headcount and the baseline is 1,060-1,000 = 60 officers.

Since the difference is in excess of the year one allocation, and the force has made the Home Office aware of plans to recruit via local funds, only 50 officers would count towards uplift. The remaining 10 officers count towards the forces’ ambition to recruit an additional 25 officers through local funds.

Two months later Force A has a headcount of 1,095 officers. The difference between the headcount and the baseline now is 1,095-1,000 = 95 officers.

Since the difference now exceeds both the year one uplift allocation (50), and the recruitment plans under local funds (25), any additional officers once again count towards uplift. In this case, the initial 50 count as uplift, and the force has also achieved its ambition to recruit 25 officers through local funds, so the remaining 20 officers will once again count towards uplift, bringing the total uplift figure to 50 + 20 = 70 officers.

Figure 2.2: How uplift is counted, an example

The accompanying data tables break these data down as follows:

Table B1: Baseline, adjusted baseline and allocation
Table U1: Current headcount position
Table U2: Officers counting towards uplift
Table U3: Officers recruited via other means

Question 3

3.  Officer uplift to 30 September 2020

Accepted Answer

As at 30 September 2020 provisional data show that there were 134,885 officers in the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales. This is an increase against the adjusted baseline of 6,413 officers. Of these additional officers, 5,824 can be attributed to the uplift programme (a 5% increase on the adjusted baseline), and the remaining 589 officers have been recruited by forces through local funds (see chapter 2 for further details).

Collection of data for the monitoring of uplift commenced in October 2019, and Figure 3.1 shows how officer numbers have steadily increased since.

Figure 3.1: Number of police officers¹, 31 March 2019 to 30 September 2020, England and Wales

Source: Table U1

Notes:

Data for the most recent quarter (July 2020 to September 2020) are provisional and subject to change in future releases of this statistics series, when they will be finalised.

This chart shows the officer headcount for March 2019, then the headcount for each month from September 2019 to September 2020. As at 30 September 2020 provisional data show that there were 134,885 officers in the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales

3.1 Officers counting towards uplift

As discussed in chapter 2, since the baseline does not account for planned recruitment and adjustments post the 2019-20 financial year, recruitment under funds raised through 2020-21 council tax precept (as well as recruitment funded by other means) must be taken into account when calculating the number of uplift officers.

Table 3.1 shows the number of officers in England and Wales at the end of every month for which programme data have been collected. The table also shows how this figure relates to the baseline, and how many additional officers are attributed to the uplift programme.

As would be expected, larger forces contribute a greater proportion of the current number of uplift officers. For example, the Metropolitan Police Service currently account for 1,369 of the 5,824 uplift officers (23.5%) across England and Wales. Data published in the established ‘Police workforce’ National Statistics show that as at 31 March 2020 the Metropolitan Police accounted for 25% of officers in England and Wales.

Table 3.1: Headcount and uplift position, by month, England and Wales

Month	Headcount as at the end of the month	Adjusted baseline	Officers counting towards uplift recruitment	Additional officers under precept	Total change from adjusted baseline
Oct-19	127,562	128,472	-910	-	-910
Nov-19	128,351	128,472	-121	-	-121
Dec-19	128,596	128,472	+124	-	+124
Jan-20	129,305	128,472	+833	-	+833
Feb-20	129,913	128,472	+1,441	-	+1,441
Mar-20	131,576	128,472	+3,104	-	+3,104
Apr-20	131,858	128,472	+3,386	-	+3,386
May-20	132,200	128,472	+3,583	+145	+3,728
Jun-20	133,131	128,472	+4,336	+323	+4,659
Jul-20	134,197	128,472	+5,153	+527	+5,680
Aug-20	134,424	128,472	+5,284	+668	+5,952
Sep-20	134,885	128,472	+5,824	+589	+6,413

Source: Table U1, Table U2, Table U3

3.2 All new recruits

Not all new recruits will be counted as progress towards uplift, as forces must maintain their baseline by recruiting to backfill any leavers. The number of new recruits therefore exceeds the number of officers counting towards uplift, as some of these were recruited to backfill vacancies, or to achieve other recruitment commitments.

Figure 3.2 shows the total number of new recruits per month since data collection began in November 2019. These figures include all new recruits, and so will be a combination of officers recruited under precept funding, officers recruited against uplift, as well as officers recruited to backfill any leavers. However, these figures do not include those returning to the Police Service after a period of absence, nor do they include transfers, so should not be used to deduce the number of leavers.

Since November 2019, there have been 12,675 new recruits to the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales.

Figure 3.2: Number of recruits, by month, England and Wales

Source: Table U4

Notes:

These data do not include those returning to the Police Service after a period of absence, nor do they include transfers.

The chart shows the number of recruits in each month since November 2019. The chart shows that the month with the highest number of recruits was March 2020, with 2,242 recruits. In the most recent quarter there were 1,574 new recruits in July 2020, 767 in August 2020, and 1,007 in September 2020.

Data for individual police forces can be found in the data tables that accompany this publication.

3.3 Diversity

Data on the gender and ethnicity of all officers in post at the end of each quarter are also collected and, for the first time in this series, data on the gender and ethnicity of new recruits to police forces (since 1 April 2020) are also provided. Data prior to April 2020 were not collected as part of the ‘officer uplift’ monthly collection in a consistent manner, so do not form part of this release. However, data on the gender and ethnicity of new recruits are also published annually in the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, the latest of which covers the period to March 2020.

Data on gender are collected under three categories (‘male’, ‘female’, and ‘prefer to self-describe’^{[footnote 3]}), and data on ethnicity are collected aggregated to five broader categories (White, Black, Asian, Mixed, Other and prefer not to say) to align with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Census 2011 classification.

As at 30 September 2020 there were 44,167 female officers in post, accounting for 32.7% of all officers. On the same date, 9,842 officers identified as belonging to the Black, Asian, Mixed or Other ethnic group (7.5% of those who stated their ethnicity).

Of the 43 forces, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) had the highest proportion of officers in the Black, Asian, Mixed and Other ethnic groups, with 15% of officers identifying themselves as such. However, this is still below the proportion of people resident in the Capital who identify as an ethnicity other than White (40%) at the time of the last Census in 2011.

The second highest proportion of officers from a Black, Asian, Mixed or Other ethnic group was in West Midlands Police, where 12% of officers who stated their ethnicity identified themselves as an ethnicity other than White (compared with 30% of the local population). This force was closely followed by Bedfordshire Police (10% compared with 23% of the local population). Cumbria, North Wales and Devon and Cornwall Police had the smallest proportion of officers from a Black, Asian, Mixed or Other ethnic group (each under 2%), reflecting relatively small population estimates within those areas.

Data on the gender and ethnicity of new recruits has been collected since April 2020. Since this time there has been a total of 6,246 new recruits to police forces in England and Wales. In April through September 2020 there were 2,406 new females recruited to the 43 territorial police forces, making up around four in ten of all new recruits (39%).

With regard to ethnicity, 10.7% of new recruits (who stated their ethnicity) identified as belonging to Black (1.7%), Asian (5.0%), Mixed (3.0%) or in the Other (0.9%) ethnic group. This remains below the representation of such ethnic groups in the general population (14% according to 2011 Census estimates) and small progress on the 10.3% (excluding transfers and re-joiners) that we reported in the last annual workforce statistics to 31 March 2020.

Figure 3.3 shows that, of new recruits that self-defined their ethnicity as one of these groups, 47% identified as Asian, 28% as Mixed, 16% as Black and the remaining 9% as Other. The ethnicity was not known in 4.5% of cases.

Figure 3.3: Composition of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic new recruits, by ethnic group, as at 30 September 2020, England and Wales

Source: Table U8

Data for individual forces can be found in Tables U5-8 of the accompanying data tables. Similar data as at March each year are available in the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin.

Question 4

4.  Glossary

Accepted Answer

Baseline: The starting figure against which adjustments will be made (see adjusted baseline). The baseline accounts for people in post at the start of the recruitment drive, and also accounts for any recruitment planned prior to the uplift announcement.

Adjusted baseline: The adjusted baseline is the figure used to track the recruitment of an additional 20,000 officers. The adjusted baseline is the original baseline with in-year adjustments then made to account for externally funded posts that have moved since the calculation of the original baseline.

Management information: Data provided by police forces from their administrative data sources. These are provisional figures only and are not subject to the same assurance processes as National Statistics.

National Statistics: A status designated to statistics by The Office for Statistics Regulation. National Statistics meet the highest standards of trustworthiness, impartiality, quality and public value, and are fully compliant with the Code of Practice for Statistics.

New recruit: A candidate who is joining the Police Service for the first time. This does not include those returning after a period of absence, nor does it include transfers or those rejoining.

NPCC: National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC). The NPCC brings forces in the UK together to help policing coordinate operations, reform, improve and provide value for money.

Police workforce, England and Wales: These are the established statistics on the police workforce, which have been designated as National Statistics. This release contains statistics on the numbers of police officers, police staff, Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs), designated officers, special constables and Police Support Volunteers (PSVs) in post on 31 March and 30 September each year (published in July and January respectively).

Precept: Police funding that is raised via local council tax.

Uplift: The term used to describe officers who count towards the Government’s commitment to recruit an additional 20,000 officers by March 2023. Officers are counted as uplift once the baseline for the respective police force has been exceeded.

Police officer uplift, England and Wales, quarterly update to 30 September 2020

Applies to England and Wales

Introduction

Key findings

1. Introduction