Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the (a) total headcount and (b) full-time equivalent number of police officers was in England and Wales as of 30 June in each year from 2015 to 2024.

The Home Office collects and publishes data on the size of the police workforce in England and Wales, as at 31 March and 30 September each year, on a full-time equivalent (FTE) and headcount basis, in the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-workforce-england-and-wales.

While data as at 30 June has not historically been routinely collected, between 31 March 2020 and 2023, during the Police Officer Uplift Programme, the Home Office published quarterly data on the number of police officers (headcount only) in England and Wales. This included quarterly data for June 2020 to June 2022 and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-officer-uplift-statistics

Additionally, the latest release of the Police Workforce statistics included an ad-hoc Annex to show the number of officers in England and Wales, on a headcount basis, at 30 June 2024: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-workforce-england-and-wales-30-september-2024/police-workforce-england-and-wales-30-september-2024#annexa

Information prior to June 2020 was not collected centrally.