Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that Bedfordshire Police have sufficient resource to hit officer number targets.

The Government’s Safer Streets Mission sets a clear expectation for policing to deliver safer communities and improved public confidence. An effective, well-supported police service is central to achieving this.

For 2025/26, £376.8 million has been made available to forces to support achievement of officer number targets. This funding was distributed as follows:

• £270.1 million in ringfenced funding has been made available, which PCCs have been able to access, as in previous years, by demonstrating that they have met their officer headcount targets.
• £106.7 million has been paid to forces who received additional recruitment allocations in 2023/24 and 2024/25. This funding has been provided as an additional recruitment top up grant. It is unconditional, and the funding has been distributed according to how much additional recruitment forces were allocated.

For 2025/26, Bedfordshire Police have been allocated a total of up to £3,155,659 through the officer maintenance ringfenced grant, and £1,580,578 through the top-up grant, to maintain a total headcount of 1,466 officers.

Published statistics show the force achieved this target at the mid-year point. As at 30 September 2025, Bedfordshire Police had a total of 1,467 police officers (headcount).

For 2025/26, a total of up to £1,803,234 was also made available to Bedfordshire Police through the neighbourhood policing grant to grow by 38 FTE Neighbourhood Policing officers (30 FTE police officers and 8 FTE PCSOs).

As at 30 September, Bedfordshire Police had grown their neighbourhood policing function by 13 FTE.