Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many police officers responsible for roads or traffic actively monitor driving standards on the roads, and how this compares to 10 years ago.

The Home Office does not collect information on the number of police officers actively monitoring road and traffic driving standards.

The Home Office collects and publishes data annually on the primary function of police officers, as at 31 March each year, in the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-workforce-england-and-wales.

Data on the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) police officers in road policing functions, which includes “traffic units”, “traffic wardens”, “vehicle recovery”, “casualty reduction partnership” and “road policing command team and support overheads” have been collected since March 2015, and can be found in Table F1 of the data tables accompanying each publication. The Home Office do not hold directly comparable data on the number of police officers employed in road policing roles for years prior to 2015.

Table 1 shows the number of FTE police officers employed in road policing roles in England and Wales between 31 March 2015 and 31 March 2024. As at 31 March 2024, there were 4,215 FTE police officers employed in road policing roles, a decrease of 19.5% (1,022 FTE) compared to March 2015 when there were 5,237 FTE police officers employed in road policing roles. The proportion of police officers in road policing roles has also been declining since 2015.

Table 1: Number and proportion of FTE police officers employed in road policing roles, as at 31 March 2015 to 2024, England and Wales

The proportions have been calculated excluding police officers recorded under the ‘Other’ function category, ‘National Policing’ functions or where the function was not known. The ‘Other’ category includes police officers on maternity/paternity leave, career break, full-time education or on suspension; and those on long-term leave (sickness, compassionate special or unpaid).