Our Shrinking Police Service

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Dear Reader

The Home Office has kindly released the figures for the ‘Policing Strength of England and Wales’ as at 31st March 2012,  Yesterday’s headline figure was that approx 5,000 officers had left their forces since the same time last year.  What they’re not so keen to tell you is that the Civil Staff (or whatever you prefer to call them) was reduced by 6,536, PCSOs fell by a further 1,427. All this means that the Police Family shrank by a total of 12,972 posts of all ranks & grades across all Forces in England and Wales.

The chart below illustrates the manner in which the Police Service is shrinking, this chart includes ONLY Police Officers and illustrates how we are leaving a period of relative stability of numbers and have entered the downward spiral.

Comparison

This diagram shows where those officers have been lost from;

geography

1. Avon and Somerset 12. Dyfed-Powys 23. Lincolnshire 34. Staffordshire 2. Bedfordshire 13. Essex 24. Merseyside 35. Suffolk 3. Cambridgeshire 14. Greater Manchester 25. Metropolitan and City 36. Surrey 4. Cheshire 15. Gloucestershire 26. Norfolk 37. Sussex 5. City of London (see 25) 16. Gwent 27. North Wales 38. Thames Valley 6. Cleveland 17. Hampshire 28. North Yorkshire 39. Warwickshire 7. Cumbria 18. Hertfordshire 29. Northamptonshire 40. West Mercia 8. Derbyshire 19. Humberside 30. Northumbria 41. West Midlands 9. Devon and Cornwall 20. Kent 31. Nottinghamshire 42. West Yorkshire 10. Dorset 21. Lancashire 32. South Wales 43. Wiltshire
11. Durham 22. Leicestershire 33. South Yorkshire

So, you can get a rough idea of how these cuts will affect you from the diagram above.  Just click on the two diagrams to see a larger version.

But, sadly, none of this tells us the full picture.  Front-Line services will never be affected we were told.

My final diagram shows the ‘bigger picture’ some of which must surely contain Front Line services.  It shows the shrinkage of the whole Police Family over the last few years.  These are figures which, whilst not secret,and are indeed openly available, we are not encouraged to put them together and do a bit of joined-up thinking.

I leave you with this thought, without any spin whatsoever, it is obvious to me that the Police Family is shrinking.  What is more, it is my belief that it is shrinking faster than the Home Office would have us believe.  I will repeat my offer, if you want to declare your home Force, I will happily supply the data as it relates to your Force, after that you can do what you want with it, it’s been released into the Public Domain

Don’t have nightmares, and thanks for reading

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1 thought on “Our Shrinking Police Service”

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