Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police officer vacancies there were in (a) Cleveland and (b) the UK on 1 May of each year since 2010.

The Home Office collects and publishes data on the size of the police workforce in England and Wales on a biannual basis in the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, available here: Police workforce England and Wales statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Information on the number of police officers and Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) in England and Wales broken by Police Force Area (PFA) as at the 31^st March each year since 2007 can be found in the ‘Police Workforce Open Data Table’ available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-workforce-open-data-tables.

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, broken down by PFA. Data are available here: Police Officer uplift statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

The Home Office does not hold information on the number of police vacancies in England and Wales.