Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police officers are designated to cover Harlow and the surrounding villages.

The Beating Crime Plan sets out the government’s commitment to driving down crime, protecting the public and increasing public confidence in the criminal justice system. This includes the recruitment of 20,000 additional officers through the Police Uplift Programme. We are working with policing partners to deliver this plan. It is for Chief Constables and elected Police and Crime Commissioners to target their resources (including the deployment of additional officers) to tackle local priorities.

The Home Office collects and publishes data on the number of officers recruited as part of the Police Officer Uplift Programme on a quarterly basis. The latest data, covering the situation to 30 June 2022, are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-officer-uplift-statistics. These data are published at Police Force Area level in the supplementary tables accompanying the bulletin.

Essex police has been allocated a total of 449 additional officers for the three year uplift programme. As at 30 June 2022, Essex police has recruited 345 additional officers.

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). These data are collected by Police Force Area only. Data on the number of police officers in Essex Police, on both a full-time equivalent (FTE) and a headcount basis are available in the Open Data Tables that accompany the release:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1005761/open-data-table-police-workforce-280721.ods

The deployment of officers across a police force area is a decision for operationally independent Chief Constables.