Too many police chiefs? - A review of police strength and costs in England & Wales 2010
SUMMARY OBSERVATIONS - Non Response Officers : Freedom Of Information Requests vs HMIC Returns
Concluding Summary
• Of the 144, 469 FTE officers returned by the FOI requests, at best, 60,181 officers, just 42% are committed to response activity. • From evidence disclosed by the forces, the more realistic number is in the region of 30% - 43,341 officers. • Divide that number by four to account for shift patterns and rest days, leaves 10,835 officers to police a population in excess of
54 million. • Factor in annual leave of 25 days per annum per officer reduces the number still further. • Factor in sickness at 3.7% and course attendance. • Police officers are spending no more time on the street now than they were two years ago, despite a series of initiatives intended
slash paperwork and get them out of stations. • Home Office figures show that in 2007-08 officers spent just 13.8 per cent of their time on patrol, which does not include attending incidents, down from 15.3 per cent in 2004-05. That is the equivalent of one hour in an average eight-hour shift, or fewer
than six in a 40-hour week. • By contrast, officers spent more than a fifth of their time on paperwork (21.7 per cent), up from 18.4 per cent over the same period and the equivalent of more than eight hours in a 40-hour week.
Officers work in excess of their 8 hour shifts, often without paid overtime, just to get the job done. This is a sure sign that police response levels have reached critical point, when the delivery of good service is so totally dependant on the good will and commitment of the officers at the front line.
DEFINING THE NON RESPONSE OR ADMINISTERIAL FUNCTIONS
Accepting best case, that 43,341 officers were assigned to response duties, that leaves 101,128 officers that are not assigned to designated response duties. Many of these non response officers will include management ranks, specialist squads etc, but there is also a considerable unidentified number engaged in statistical or audit type roles, or with clerical functions. The non response support type roles require urgent scrutiny to establish the bvalue of the role, and whether the officer(s) could be more effectively deployed in a front line function, reducing additional recruitment costs and increasing frontline presence and effectiveness overall.
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Chapter 5
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