Safer Neighbourhood Teams

(asked on 15th November 2017) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many Safer Neighbourhood Teams in England and Wales are currently operational.


Answered by
Baroness Williams of Trafford Portrait
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
This question was answered on 23rd November 2017

The Home Office does not collect data on the number of Neighbourhood Policing teams that are operational. The Home Office does collect data annually on the function of police officers and Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs), including the number of full time equivalent police officers and PCSOs primarily employed in Neighbourhood Policing teams and/or Safer Neighbourhood teams. This information can be found in the data tables published alongside the annual ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-workforce-england-and-wales

Latest data as at 31 March 2017 can be found in the Tables F1, F3 F4 and F6 of the police workforce statistics published in July 2017: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/629865/police-workforce-tabs-jul17.ods

Officers and PCSOs with multiple responsibilities or designations are recorded under their primary function. The data do not therefore provide a complete picture of all officers assigned to neighbourhood policing functions.

Some forces are not able to make a clear distinction between ‘Neighbourhood Policing’ roles and ‘Incident (Response) Management’ roles, therefore those forces record the majority of, or all, employees under just one function. A more reliable measure is the number of officers employed in ‘Local policing’ roles, which includes both neighbourhood and response functions.

Any comparisons at force level should be made with care due to collaboration arrangements between forces for particular functions. Additionally, police functions data are often affected by re-structuring within police forces. Therefore comparisons over time for specific functions should be made with care.

Decisions on the size and composition of the police workforce are operational matters for Chief Officers working with their Police and Crime Commissioners and taking into account local priorities.

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