Last updated on October 11th, 2023 at 04:28 pm
Last updated on October 11th, 2023 at 04:28 pm
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe Odds And Sods
Age
Normally I would take a look at length of Service, but for the past 3 years the Police Uplift Programme has flooded the Service with nearly 21,000 extra ‘Probationers’ so that the 0-5 year bracket would be highly skewed, and would make me doubt the value in looking at them this year.
With that in mind I decided to take a look at Age Bands. I wasn’t totally certain as to what the long term situation might be, but was curious enough to take a look.
Bearing in mind the carnage that has been inflicted upon Policing by various versions of this government, I was staggered to find that there were no real, unexpected changes. The number of Under 25s has changed drastically, but that can be explained by the influx of new recruits over the past 3 years. The Over 50s have increased by a modest amount, but that could possibly be explained by the current economic situation, however there is another candidate.
It may amuse you to learn that of the (almost) 21,000 brand new officers added to Policing between 2020 and 2023, 2,777 of them were over 55. No that isn’t a joke, and yes, I have double checked the data tables.
The numbers
Another fact that I personally find amusing, is that in order to achieve their almost 21,000 extra officers they actually recruited 46,504. Over 50% fell by the wayside for whatever reason. You don’t hear much about that from Government, the College or NPCC.
Ethnicity
Both the Home Office and the Government as a whole have joined the clamour insisting that Policing does not reflect the ethnic makeup of Communities. For the last three years the Home Office, under Prime Minister Boris Johnson, agreed and introduced the Police Uplift Programme, designed to increase Police numbers by 20,000 over three years. In reality they somehow achieved nearly 21,000. This was their ideal opportunity to shift the ethnic profile of the Police Service. So what effect did that have on the ethnic profile of the Police Service of England and Wales?
Absolutely bugger all.
In their end of project closing report the Home Office helpfully included a nice little pie chart showing the various percentages of ‘ethnic recruits’ that had joined under PUP. Very interesting I’m sure but it tells a very slanted tale.
I decided against a nice colourful chart at this point because the majority of ethnicities were too small to be clear, so, instead, I give you a data table. I have taken the Home Office ethnicity figures and turned them into percentages of the total establishment for each year. That provides a view on ethnicity which is more in line with reality.
The Home Office changed Chinese and Other, but that doesn’t really make just difference. Neither did the Police Uplift Programme, the ethnic profile of the Police Service as a whole is virtually indistinguishable from what it was in 2020.
Gender
Possible my last ever opinions on the Police Uplift Programme. How has PUP changed the Gender Imbalance in Policing, and how many genders does the Home Office recognise?
The Home Office helpfully published a breakdown of the PUP recruits, over the full 3 years, by gender. From their figures it was easy to produce a pie chart answering all of the above questions.
5,500 more Males than Females with very small numbers of Other and Not Stated. This tells me two things, with regards to the Gender Balance, PUP has done nothing at all, and the Home Office doesn’t really recognise anything other than Male and Female, so I’m not really sure why they bother to publish those figures.
There you have it, my crusty opinion of the PUP. Everybody obviously the right to agree or disagree. In my opinion the ONLY area in which it has been a success is in bolstering raw numbers, nothing else.
