The government has reiterated its commitment to provide 13,000 new neighbourhood police officers in England and Wales by 2029.

But only 3,000 of these will be newly recruited. And our analysis finds that, because of population growth, the number of police officers per head of the population will actually fall.

Key manifesto pledges

Recruiting more police officers was a key manifesto pledge for both Labour and the Conservatives during the general election campaign.

The headline manifesto figures were that the Conservatives planned to recruit 8,000 new officers, while Labour planned to provide 13,000 new neighbourhood police.

At first glance, the Labour commitment sounded bigger – but a further breakdown actually showed that they only planned to recruit 3,000 new full officers.

That Labour promise for 13,000 new neighbourhood police was repeated this week as part of the government’s relaunch.

Of those, only 3,000 of those would be newly recruited officers. 

Another 3,000 would be generated by reshuffling the existing workforce. 

And a further 7,000 would come from recruiting Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) and volunteer special constables. 

PCSOs work with full officers and share some of their powers, but do not have powers of arrest.

Special constables are volunteers who are only required to work a minimum of 200 hours annually.

A real terms fall

Assuming that the Labour government meets its pledge to recruit the 3,000 new officers by 2029, our analysis finds this will actually result in a fall in the number of full police officers per head of the population.

This is because population growth in that time will outstrip police recruitment. 

So while there are currently around 245 full police officers for every 100,000 people in England and Wales, that number will fall to 237 by 2029 under the current government plans. 

We put our specific figures to the government but they declined to comment on them.

The government said this week: “Our milestone over this Parliament is to put police back on the beat in communities, placing 13,000 additional police officers, PCSOs and special constables into neighbourhood policing roles”.

“Each neighbourhood will have a named, contactable officer dealing with local issues”.

The government emphasised that these will be “dedicated neighbourhood policing roles”, where police are “demonstrably spending time on visible patrol and not taken off the beat to plug shortages elsewhere”. It says this will deter and drive down anti-social behaviour. 

(Image credit: Matt Dunham / ASSOCIATED PRESS.)