Official Statistics

Police officer uplift, England and Wales, quarterly update to 31 December 2021

Updated 27 April 2022

Applies to England and Wales

Frequency of release: Quarterly

Forthcoming releases: Home Office statistics release calendar

Home Office responsible statistician: Jodie Hargreaves

Press enquiries: pressoffice@homeoffice.gov.uk

Telephone: 0300 123 3535 Public enquiries: crimeandpolicestats@homeoffice.gov.uk

Privacy information notice

Introduction

This release contains information on progress towards the recruitment of an additional 20,000 police officers in England and Wales by March 2023. A statistical bulletin on Police Workforce in England and Wales as at 30 September 2021 has also been published separately on the same day, providing information on the total number of police officers, police staff and Police Community Support Officers on a full-time equivalent and headcount basis, as well as some information on Special Constables and Police Support Volunteers.

139,939 officers provisional headcount as at 31 December 2021, England and Wales

+11,048 (of +20,000 by March 2023) provisional uplift figure as at 31 Decemeber 2021, England and Wales

Key findings

• provisional data show that there were 139,939 officers in the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales as at 31 December 2021

• this was an increase of 11,505 officers on the adjusted baseline (see glossary) of 128,434

Of these additional officers:

• 11,048 have been recruited from funding for the Police Uplift Programme and contributed towards the target of 20,000 by March 2023 (9% above the baseline, with 55% of the target recruited)

• a further 457 additional officers have been recruited through other funding streams (such as from local council tax precept)

• of the 11,048 additional uplift officers, 191 had been deployed to Regional and Organised Crime Units (ROCUs)

• since April 2020, more than four in ten new recruits (42.4%) were female and 11.8% (who stated their ethnicity) identified as belonging to a Black, Asian, Mixed or other minority ethnic group

• 179,642 applications to become a police officer have been received since October 2019

Figure 1: Officers recruited into uplift

Figure 1 shows, by month, a steady increase in the number of police officers recruited towards the target of 20,000 by March 2023. In the latest quarter, the number of officers recruited towards uplift increased in October and November, then in December declined to similar levels seen as at 30 September 2021. This decline was driven by reduced police officer recruitment in December 2021, where new police officer joiner levels dipped below the total number of officers leaving the workforce (including retirees) that month. This follows a similar trend to that seen in December 2020. Officer recruitment levels vary by month reflecting the different recruitment cycles of individual forces, and the majority of forces do not plan for new officer intakes at the end of the calendar year. Further information can be found in chapter 3 of this publication.

1. Introduction

The current government made a manifesto commitment 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.

This release also contains information on the demographics of police officers in post as at 31 December 2021 in England and Wales, and of new recruits since April 2020.

Following improvements to police force HR systems to collect a broader range of information on protected characteristics many officers are yet to update their HR records and, therefore data are not currently complete. As such the diversity section of this release only focuses on the protected characteristics of sex, ethnicity and age, where the data are more complete and reliable. For more information on these changes to force HR systems see chapter 3.3.

In addition, since July 2021, experimental statistics are included in Annex A to this release to provide information on the proportion of officers broken down by sexual orientation and disability status.

1.2 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.

In 2021 the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ was updated to align with the new data standards. 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.

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 previous quarters. Furthermore, in preparation for the publication of the biannual Police workforce, England and Wales statistical bulletin, analysts ran a reconciliation exercise across the two datasets. Table 1.1 shows revisions made since the last quarterly release.

Table 1.1: Summary of monthly headcount revisions

Month	Headcount published in ‘quarter to September 2021’ bulletin	Updated Headcount	Difference (Headcount)
August 21	139,319	139,318	-1
September 21	139,908	139,921	+13

Though data in this bulletin are released as official statistics, they have not yet been assessed for designation as National Statistics^{[footnote 1]} by the Office for Statistics Regulation.

1.3 Additional data sources

The data in this release can be found in the ‘Police officer uplift, England and Wales, December 2021’ data tables. In addition to these data tables, information on the number of police officers (headcount) and new joiners by ethnicity, sex and age group for each month since April 2020 are published in an open data format.

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. Information on how figures differ between the two publications can be found in Annex B of this publication.

2. Allocations and Baseline

2.1 Baseline

The first release 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, we are not using the police workforce statistics as at 30 September 2019 (published on 30 January 2020) as the initial baseline. This is because most forces already had plans to increase their workforce establishment during the financial year ending 31 March 2020 following planned local council tax precept increases.

A full explanation of this decision, alongside further details on the baseline methodology, and in-year adjustments made since, 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’, and previous versions of this statistical series.

Throughout the duration of the recruitment campaign small adjustments to the baseline figure are expected as externally funded posts move from one organisation to another as a part of organisational re-structuring (such as posts transferring out of a territorial force to the National Crime Agency). The baseline figure for which recruitment of an additional 20,000 officers is measured is 128,434.

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

2.2 Allocations

Funding to support an initial allocation of 6,000 additional officers was given to police forces for recruitment in the year ending March 2021. An allocation of a further 6,000 officers has since been announced for recruitment in the year ending March 2022. This second wave of 6,000 officers also includes an allocation of 270 specifically to tackle Serious and Organised Crime (SOC).

Funding for tackling SOC will be shared across the network of Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs) hosted within specific territorial forces. Furthermore, City of London Police has been allocated an additional 30 officers (within the 6,000) specifically to uplift its officers tackling fraud. The share of SOC officers are included in the total force allocations and monitored regionally in the ROCUs.

In December 2021, the Home Office announced allocation of the final 8,000 additional officers to be recruited in the year ending 31 March 2023. This allocation of 8,000 officers included a further 425 officers across the network of ROCUs.

Information on the allocations given to individual police forces can be found in Table B1.

Counter-Terrorism Policing

In December 2020, the Home Office announced that an allocation of 80 additional Counter-Terrorism police officers would be included in the 6,000 additional officers in the second year of the programme (financial year ending March 2022). Following the publication of the Written Ministerial Statement accompanying the Provisional Police Grant Report for the financial year ending March 2023, these 80 additional officer posts have since been reallocated to territorial policing. Within this statistical release this reallocation of officers has been applied from October 2021 onwards and allocations contained in Table B1 have been revised to include this reallocation.

No Counter-Terrorism Policing allocations have been made in the final year of the programme.

2.3 What counts as uplift?

Each police force has a baseline figure, and, following allocations for recruitment to March 2021, each force now has an additional allocation to recruit by March 2022 (Table B1). Police forces are required to backfill any leavers throughout the duration of the campaign, as well as recruiting the additional officers allocated to them through the uplift funding before the recruitment goals can be met.

Additional recruitment through local funds

Forces may also choose to recruit additional officers through local funds (such as council tax precept). Where this is the case, and within each financial year, additional officers counting towards uplift are recruited first, and then further recruits count towards locally funded officers. Table U3 contains information on locally funded officers.

3. Officer uplift to 31 December 2021

As at 31 December 2021, provisional data show that there were 139,939 officers in the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales. This is an increase, against the adjusted baseline (128,434), of 11,505 officers. Of these additional officers, 11,048 can be attributed to the uplift programme (a 9% increase on the adjusted baseline), and the remaining 457 through local funding (see chapter 2 for further details).

Allocations to forces for the year ending March 2022 includes 270 posts specifically to tackle Serious and Organised Crime (SOC). Funding for tackling SOC will be shared across the network of Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs). The data show that of the 11,048 additional officers recruited in the territorial forces, 191 have been deployed to ROCUs.

Collection of data for the monitoring of uplift commenced in October 2019. Figure 3.1 shows how officer numbers have steadily increased every quarter, to 139,939 as at 31 December 2021 (up from 139,921 at 30 September 2021). Officer numbers have increased in 24 of the 27 months since September 2021, with the exceptions being December 2020, April 2021 and December 2021, where total officer numbers dipped slightly due to more leavers than joiners at the end of the calendar year and start of the financial year. Further information on how recruitment levels can vary throughout the year is included in chapter 3.2.

Figure 3.1: Number of police officers¹, 31 March 2019 to 31 December 2021, England and Wales

Source: Table U1

Notes:

1. Data for the most recent quarter (October 2021 to December 2021) are provisional and subject to change in future releases of this statistics series, when they will be finalised.

3.1 Officers counting towards uplift

As discussed in chapter 2, since the baseline does not account for planned recruitment and adjustments post the financial year ending March 2020, recruitment under funds raised through council tax precept in the year ending March 2021 and March 2022 (as well as recruitment funded by other means) must be taken into account when calculating the number of uplift officers. This ensures officers not funded through the uplift programme are not counted towards the 20,000 target.

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 adjusted baseline, and how many additional officers are attributed to the uplift programme.

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	128,434	-872	-	-872
Nov-19	128,351	128,434	-83	-	-83
Dec-19	128,596	128,434	+162	-	+162
Jan-20	129,305	128,434	+871	-	+871
Feb-20	129,913	128,434	+1,479	-	+1,479
Mar-20	131,576	128,434	+3,142	-	+3,142
Apr-20	131,858	128,434	+3,424	-	+3,424
May-20	132,200	128,434	+3,621	+145	+3,766
Jun-20	133,131	128,434	+4,374	+323	+4,697
Jul-20	134,197	128,434	+5,191	+572	+5,763
Aug-20	134,424	128,434	+5,322	+668	+5,990
Sep-20	134,879	128,434	+5,857	+588	+6,445
Oct-20	135,215	128,434	+6,295	+486	+6,781
Nov-20	135,623	128,434	+6,867	+322	+7,189
Dec-20	135,247	128,434	+6,619	+194	+6,813
Jan-21	136,206	128,434	+7,429	+343	+7,772
Feb-21	136,676	128,434	+7,813	+429	+8,242
Mar-21	137,690	128,434	+8,762	+494	+9,256
Apr-21	137,614	128,434	+8,844	+336	+9,180
May-21	137,989	128,434	+9,219	+336	+9,555
Jun-21	138,573	128,434	+9,813	+326	+10,139
Jul-21	138,759	128,434	+9,969	+356	+10,325
Aug-21	139,318	128,434	+10,516	+368	+10,884
Sep-21	139,921	128,434	+11,066	+421	+11,487
Oct-21	140,126	128,434	+11,268	+424	+11,692
Nov-21	140,352	128,434	+11,436	+482	+11,918
Dec-21	139,939	128,434	+11,048	+457	+11,505

Source: Table U1, Table U2, Table U3

Despite the total number of police officers at the end of December 2021 increasing slightly on the number recorded at the end of the previous quarter (30 September 2021), a slight fall in uplift position has been seen over this period. This overall increase was driven by an increase in the number of officers recruited through local council tax precept funding. As explained in chapter 2.3 of this publication, where forces choose to recruit additional officers through local funds, additional officers counting towards uplift are recruited first, and then further recruits count towards locally funded officers. Increases in headcount amongst forces who have achieved their year two uplift allocation but not yet achieved locally funded recruitment ambitions will therefore not translate into an increase in uplift position.

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 leavers, 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 (robust data for all forces were not available prior to that). These figures include all new recruits, and comprise a combination of officers recruited under precept funding, those recruited against uplift, as well as others recruited to backfill any leavers. However, these figures exclude those returning to the police service after a period of absence and do not include transfers between forces and should not be used to deduce the actual number of leavers.

Since November 2019, there have been 26,225 new recruits to the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales. Officer recruitment levels vary by month reflecting the different recruitment cycles of individual forces. Recruitment levels were the lowest in December 2020 and 2021, with many forces choosing to wait until the New Year to run a recruitment round. Of the 43 territorial police force just 6 forces recruited officers in December 2020 and 7 in December 2021.

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

Source: Table U4

Notes:

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

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

3.3 Diversity

Information on protected characteristics

As part of the initiative to improve data on the police workforce, the Home Office, the NPCC and the College of Policing have been collaborating in developing National Standards for Workforce Data. These data standards draw on existing harmonised standards set out by the Government Statistical Service and aim to bring more standardisation within policing for the collection of data on protected characteristics (and some other demographic information). The variables currently covered by the Standards are: Ethnicity, Age, Religion or Belief, Disability, Sexual Orientation, Gender, Sex, and Gender Reassignment.

Information on protected characteristics is self-reported by officers on police force HR systems. Recent changes to police force HR systems to align with the new data standards have allowed all staff the opportunity to review existing records and declare further information on protected characteristics.

As many officers are yet to update their HR records, data are not currently complete. As such the diversity section of this release previously focused on the protected characteristics of gender and ethnicity only, where the data were more complete and reliable.

Experimental statistics have also been included in an Annex to this release since July 2021 to provide information on the proportion of officers broken down by sexual orientation, age and disability status.

The Home Office and NPCC continue to work with police forces to improve the quality of data collected on protected characteristics. It is expected that this will result in more complete data for officers and new recruits, as well as updated records for those officers in post where a characteristic was previously not stated.

Information on age

Following improvements to the completeness of the data, this is the first publication in which the proportions of both total officers and new joiners since April 2020 have been broken down by age group in the diversity section of these official statistics, having previously been marked as experimental statistics in the Annex.

Further information on the age of police staff and a historic time series of police officer by age group can be found in the annual workforce statistics for the year ending 31 March 2021.

Information on sex and gender

Following the expansion of the data collection to align with the new data standards, the Home Office and NPCC became aware that forces were inconsistent in the reporting of gender data, with most forces instead reporting on sex. The NPCC has continued to work closely with forces to ensure greater consistency in the reporting of sex and gender.

As at 31 December 2021, the sex of all officers has been recorded on police force HR systems. Meanwhile, 41% of officers have self-reported their gender. This chapter therefore now focusses on the legal sex of officers only as this data is most complete. Data on sex are collected under two categories (‘male’ and ‘female’).

Information on ethnicity

Until May 2021, data on ethnicity were 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.

Since May 2021 (when the new data standards were implemented), data on ethnicity have been collected at the more detailed level, using the ONS Census 2011 18+1 ethnic groups. For officers in post as at 30 September 2021, these data are available in Table U6b.

Data on the sex and ethnicity of all officers in post at the end of each quarter, and of new recruits have been collected since 1 April 2020. Data on the legal sex and ethnicity of new recruits prior to this are also published annually in the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, the latest of which covers the period to 31 March 2021.

Diversity of those in post as at 31 December 2021, England and Wales

As at 31 December 2021, in England and Wales there were 47,667 female officers in post, accounting for 34.1% of officers. On the same date, 10,833 officers identified as belonging to the Black, Asian, Mixed or other minority ethnic group (8.0% of those who stated their ethnicity, compared with 7.9% last quarter).

Looking across each individual ethnic group, of all officers in England and Wales that stated an ethnicity, 3.6% identified as Asian, 1.3% as Black, 2.4% as Mixed and 0.6% as ‘Other’. For the Asian, Black and Other groups, these rates were lower than the proportion seen in the general population. Meanwhile, the proportion of police officers identified as Mixed ethnicity, exceeded rates seen in the general population slightly, as shown in table 3.2.

Table 3.2: Number of officers in post (headcount) as at 31 December 2021, England and Wales, by ethnicity

Ethnic group	Number of officers (headcount)	Adjusted % of all officers (excluding where ethnicity was not stated)	2011 census population estimates
White	125,170	92.0%	86.0%
Black	1,771	1.3%	3.3%
Asian	4,873	3.6%	7.5%
Mixed	3,327	2.4%	2.2%
Other	862	0.6%	1.0%
Prefer not to say	2,333	-	-
Unknown	1,703	-	-

Source: Table 6a, ONS 2011 Census

In general, the larger metropolitan police forces with the most ethnically diverse local populations had a higher proportion of officers in the Black, Asian, Mixed and Other ethnic groups. For example, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) had the highest proportion of officers in the Black, Asian, Mixed and Other ethnic groups, with 16.4% of officers identifying themselves as such, a slight improvement on last quarter (0.2 percentage points) and the highest proportion on record. This was followed by West Midlands Police (13.0%) and Bedfordshire (10.4%).

However, these proportions still remained below the proportion of residents in each of these areas who identified as from one of these ethnic groups (40.2%, 29.9% and 22.5% respectively) at the time of the last Census in 2011.

The MPS and West Midlands forces also appeared amongst the three forces with the highest proportion of Black, Asian or Mixed officers when considering each ethnicity group individually. MPS had the highest proportion of officers identifying as Black (3.6%) and Mixed (4.0%). West Midlands meanwhile recorded the highest proportion of officers identifying as Asian (8.2%), with MPS recording the second highest (6.8%). However, these proportions were all below the representation of such ethnic groups in their respective resident populations.

Cumbria and North Wales police forces had the smallest proportion of officers from a Black, Asian, Mixed or Other ethnic group (at 1.0% and 1.1%), reflecting the relatively small numbers of these groups resident in those areas according to the 2011 Census (1.5% and 2.5% respectively).

Figure 3.3 shows that as at 31 December 2021, over half (57%) of all police officers were aged 40 or under, with 11% of all officers aged 25 and under. Meanwhile, 42% of all officers were between aged 41 and 55 with the remaining 2% aged over 55.

Figure 3.3: Number and proportion of police officers, by age group, as at 31 March 2019 and 31 December 2021, England and Wales

Source: Table U9

By comparison, as at 31 March 2019 (before the programme began) 54% of all police officers were aged 40 or under, with 7% of all officers aged 25 and under. However, over this period, officer numbers have increased across all four age groups.

Data for individual forces can be found in Tables U5-U10 of the accompanying data tables and the number of officers in post by protected characteristic for each month since April 2020 can be found in the accompanying officer numbers open data table. Similar data as at March each year are available in the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin.

Diversity of new recruits since April 2020

Since April 2020 there has been a total of 19,796 new recruits to police forces in England and Wales. Of these, 8,388 were female making up 42.4% of all new recruits where sex is known. Whilst this remains below their representation in the general population (where females made up 51% of residents in England and Wales) this was a notable increase on levels seen in previous years. The annual workforce statistics for the year ending 31 March 2020 (towards the beginning of the police uplift programme) showed 37% of new police joiners were female.

With regard to ethnicity, 2,229 new recruits identified as belonging to a minority ethnic group. This equates to 11.8% of new recruits (among the 96% who stated their ethnicity) identified as belonging to Black (1.7%), Asian (5.5%), Mixed (3.7%) or in the Other (0.9%) ethnic group. This proportion of 11.8% remained below the representation of such ethnic groups in the general population (14% according to 2011 Census estimates) but an improvement on the 10.3% (excluding transfers and re-joiners) that we reported in the annual workforce statistics to 31 March 2020 during the early stages of the uplift programme.

Figure 3.4 shows that, of new recruits that self-defined their ethnicity as other than White, 47% identified as Asian, 31% as Mixed, 14% as Black and the remaining 8% as Other. By comparison, the 2011 census showed that of those who identified as Black, Asian, Mixed or Other ethnic, 54% identified as Asian, 16% as Mixed, 24% as Black and 7% as Other.

Figure 3.4: Composition of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic new recruits, by ethnic group, as at 31 December 2021, England and Wales

Source: Table U8

Since April 2020, 95% of all new police officer recruits were aged 40 or under (and 55% of new recruits were under 26). Only 0.2% of new recruits were over the age of 55.

Data for individual forces can be found in Tables U5-U10 of the accompanying data tables and the number of new recruits by protected characteristic and by month started within force since April 2020 can be found in the accompanying new recruits open data table. Similar data as at March each year are available in the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin.

4. Glossary

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.

Counter Terrorism Policing: Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) is made up officers from police forces across the country. They work to protect the public and our national security, by preventing, deterring and investigating terrorist activity.

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.

Regional Organised Crime Unit: Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs) are regional collaborations of police forces that bring together specialist policing capabilities to tackle the threat from Serious and Organised Crime (SOC).

Serious and Organised Crime: Serious and organised crime is defined in the 2018 Serious and Organised Crime Strategy as individuals planning, coordinating and committing serious offences, whether individually, in groups and or as part of transnational networks. It affects more UK citizens, more often, than any other national security threat and leads to more deaths in the UK each year than all other national security threats combined. It has a corrosive impact on our public services, communities, reputation and way of life.

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.

Annex A: Additional analysis of police officer numbers by protected characteristics

Throughout the uplift programme, the NPCC has collected management information from police forces in England and Wales about new and existing officers to support decision making and for use in these statistics. This has included information on the sex and ethnicity of police officers and new recruits.

As part of the initiative to improve data on the police workforce, a number of changes have recently been made to the NPCC data collection template, particularly around the collection of data on protected characteristics.

The Home Office, the NPCC and the College of Policing have been collaborating in developing National Standards for Workforce Data. These data standards draw on existing harmonised standards set out by the Government Statistical Service and aim to bring more standardisation within policing for the collection of data on protected characteristics (and some other demographic information). The variables currently covered by the Standards are: Ethnicity, Age, Religion or Belief, Disability, Sexual orientation, Gender, Sex, and Gender Reassignment. A full breakdown of the standards can be found in the user guide.

Information on their protected characteristics is self-reported by officers on police force HR systems. Recent changes to police force HR systems to align with the new data standards have allowed all staff the opportunity to review existing records and declare further information on protected characteristics. However, many officers are yet to update their HR records and, as such, data are not currently complete.

As a result, experimental statistics were included in this Annex for the first time in July 2021 to provide information on the proportion of officers broken down by sexual orientation, age and disability status.

Whilst relatively high proportions of officers had not recorded their sexual orientation and disability status (47.0% and 48.6% respectively as at 31 December 2021), the NPCC is working with police forces to encourage all staff to enter this information. We therefore expect to see increases in the proportion of officers who have recorded their sexual orientation and disability status in future quarterly releases.

Given the incomplete nature of this dataset, the information provided in this Annex is marked as Experimental Statistics, to acknowledge that further development is currently taking place, and more detailed statistics will be published in future years. For this reason, any interpretation of data in this Annex should be made with caution.

Following improvements to data completeness, statistics on the age of officers previously included in this annex are no longer marked as Experimental Statistics and appear as a part of the main official statistics release and data tables.

As described in the main police uplift statistics there were a total of 139,939 officers in post as of 31 December 2021. The below tables show proportions of these officers, where known, by disability status and sexual orientation as well as the proportion of all officers where this information is currently unknown.

Table A1 Police officers by disability status, England and Wales, as at 31 December 2021

	% of all officers (headcount)
Known	51.4%
of which: Yes	8.5%
of which: No	91.5%
Prefer not to say	2.7%
Unknown	45.9%

Table A2 Police officers by sexual orientation, England and Wales, as at 31 December 2021

	% of all officers (headcount)
Known	53.0%
of which: Heterosexual/Straight	92.7%
of which: Bisexual	2.4%
of which: Gay/Lesbian	4.7%
of which: Prefer to Self-Describe	0.1%
Prefer not to say	6.0%
Unknown	40.9%

Annex B: Differences between this publication and Police Workforce, England and Wales Statistics

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, and users are therefore encouraged to use those data to analyse long-term trends in 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.

Police workforce, England and Wales
Frequency of release: Biannually (July and January)
Period covered: Data at 31-Mar and 30-Sept each year
Workforce covered: Police forces in England and Wales, British Transport Police, and National Crime Agency
Measurement: FTE and headcount

Police officer uplift, England and Wales
Frequency of release: Quarterly (July, October, January, April)
Period covered: Data at the end of the preceding quarter
Workforce covered: Police forces in England and Wales
Measurement: 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 into police forces from other constabularies. It excludes those seconded out from forces to central services (such as the Home Office, the National Crime Agency etc.).

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: 30 September 2021, showed that as at 30 September 2021, the police officer headcount was 139,921 and the FTE was 137,582 – 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. This means that the statistics meet the highest standards of trustworthiness, impartiality, quality and public value, and are fully compliant with the Code of Practice for Statistics. ↩