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 (i) rural and (ii) urban areas in the West Midlands in each year since 2019; and if she will make an estimate of the number there will be in each of the next three years.

The Home Office does not hold information on the number of police officers and Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) specifically in rural and urban areas of West Midlands.

The Home Office collects and publishes data on the size of the police workforce in England and Wales on a bi-annual basis in the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-workforce-england-and-wales.

The data is collected at Police Force Area (PFA) level only, and information at lower levels of geography is not collected.

Information on the number of police officers and PCSOs, broken down by PFA, as at 31 March 2007 to 2024 can be found in the ‘Police Workforce Open Data Table’ here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/669a910da3c2a28abb50d34b/open-data-table-police-workforce-240724.ods

Data on the police workforce as at 31 March 2025 is due to be published in Summer 2025.

The restoration of neighbourhood policing is at the heart of this Government’s plans for police reform. We are working with policing to implement a new Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, which will be supported by delivering an additional 13,000 police officers, PCSOs and special constables in neighbourhood policing roles across the country and we will ensure every community has a named officer to turn to.