The Home Secretary did this morning’s breakfast round of media interviews heralding the achievement of the government’s target of recruiting an additional 20,000 police officers by March 2023; was this ever in doubt?
The Home Office announced that there are now 149,572 police officers in England and Wales. The Home Secretary was understandably proud to laud this new record.
A proper One Nation Tory, Benjamin Disraeli asserted that ‘there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics’. Several interviewers shared this apprehension this morning.
It was put to the Home Secretary that in 2010 there were 146,030 police officers. Due to years of austerity, that number dwindled to 121,929 in September 2017, a decrease of 21,805 officers.
News presenters asked the Home Secretary whether we’re merely replacing the number of lost officers. She avoided the question and responded by praising the bravery and service of all officers.
Politicians know that when giving interviews, there are significant time constraints. They routinely dodge difficult questions to get across their key messages. A genuine portrayal of the truth is often a casualty through them playing this game.
Since 2010, along with the reduction in officer numbers, records indicate that Police Community Support Officers have halved from 17,198 to 8,263. Special Constables dropped from 15,505 to 7,840, and 24,000 support staff posts were lost.
In reality, the government drastically reduced the capacity of the police service to protect the public.
A further product of the failure to maintain officer numbers is the haemorrhaging of experience. Nationally, a third of all police officers have less than five years of service.
His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary noted that the Met’s current problems were ‘amplified by the presence of a relatively young, inexperienced workforce – a consequence of the [Met’s] increased recruitment enabled by the police uplift programme.’
Wiltshire Police are not immune to this problem. The local officers who cover Marlborough and Devizes have an average of 2-3 years of service.
Similarly, there is the recent failure to properly vet all police recruits. The Inspectorate also commented on national guidance on vetting not always being followed. Some forces took shortcuts to avoid losing government funding to bolster officer numbers.
The backdrop to this is the horror of the realisation that men like Wayne Couzens and David Carrick can be police officers.
A member of the Inspectorate stated, ‘If the police are to rebuild public trust and protect their own female officers and staff, vetting must be much more rigorous – and sexual misconduct taken more seriously.’
This fascination with officer numbers is symptomatic of a much more significant issue. We should be more concerned about the operational capacity of the police service and its efficiency in protecting the public. This premise applies just as much to Chief Constables as the Home Secretary.
Policing today and combatting crime is an increasingly complex business, and numerous roles are performed today by well-trained civilian specialists. They examine crime scenes, retrieve evidence from computers and mobile telephones, take witness statements and investigate crimes.
In recent years, several crime types have fallen, but there has been an increase in fraud and violent crime. Response times to calls have increased, invariably linked to staff shortages, increased demand and the inefficient use of resources. Clearance rates have fallen, particularly offences of sexual violence. A succession of scandals has shaken public confidence in policing.
Instead of focusing on officer numbers, we should take a far more outcome-based approach to judge the government’s record when it comes to policing. Numerous performance indicators provide a far more insightful assessment of policing than officer numbers.
‘The Suspicions of Mr Whicher’ – a Victorian whodunit – opening at The Watermill Theatre
