Police Recruitment – Are We Getting There?

Last updated on July 20th, 2023 at 03:02 pm

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Just a quick one today, brutal and to the point.

Yes, folks it’s the Police Uplift Programme again, is it on track to deliver? Have I been unfair to Boris and Priti?

For the purposes of ths post, at least, I have tried to be scrupulously fair. These are the assumptions I have worked with.

  • The Home Office stats are correct (accurate)
  • During the lifetime of the Police Uplift Programme (PUP) the full 50,000 officers will be recruited, as referenced here.
  • Traditional recruiting had stayed at it’s previous levels (it didn’t)
  • Police Uplift Programme reaches its target of 20,000 extra officers over 3 years

Below is a chart representing what we actually know so far, based on actual, published figures

Police Recruitment
Fig 1. PUP Recruitment so far

To be fair, the PUP has just over 18 months still to run, so it might get there. On 31st March 2020 there were 129,110 officers in England and Wales. 50, 000 more would give us 179,110, assuming that Leavers remained at comparable levels to previous years. Extrapolating PUP’s success so far would give us 179,775, not very far out. A quite acceptable difference.

Police Recruitment
Fig 2. Projected Police Service Strength if PUP 100% on target

Are we getting there? Are we currently on track to match that chart above? What is the reality? Well, MY projection, and it is only that, is that the chart will look like this.

Police Recruitment
Fig 3. My projection of PUP Recruitment

My prediction is that success continuing at its current rate will lead to a Police Service numbering slightly less than 154,000. This would be the largest Police Service for England and Wales of all time, but still over 20,000 short of what Boris and Priti promised us. I always thought that there 20,000 extra officers was ambitious, where the whole thing is falling down is that recruitment outside of PUP has fallen off the cliff, so we are ain danger of Boris and Priti claiming the credit for recruiting 20,000 officers, but will they truly be extra?

Or have we been sold a PUP?

I forgot to add, I don’t have a degree, I’m not an Academic, so if I’ve got things wrong there’s at least one Academic out there who will put me right.

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