Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) police officers and (b) Police Community Support Officers there were in the West Midlands Police Force in (i) 2010 and (ii) 2022.

The Home Office collects and publishes data on the size of the police workforce in England and Wales, broken down by Police Force Area (PFA), on a bi-annual basis in the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin.

Information on the number of police officers and Police Community Support Officers in each of the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales, as at 31 March each year, from 2007 to 2022 can be found in the ‘Workforce Open Data Table’. The latest mid-year figure, as at 30 September 2022, is also available in the data tables accompanying the latest ‘Police Workforce’ bulletin.

While the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin remains the key measure of the size of the police workforce, as part of the Police Officer Uplift Programme, the Home Office also publishes a quarterly update on the number of officers (headcount terms only) in England and Wales, also broken down by PFA. Data as at 31 December 2022 are available here: Police Officer uplift statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

As at 31 December 2022, West Midlands Police has recruited 1,048 additional uplift officers against a total three year allocation of 1,218 officers.