Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many roads policing officers there were in England (1) on 1 January 2019, and (2) today.

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, for England and Wales statistical bulletin, which can be found on gov.uk.

Information on the number of police officers by function as at 31 March is published annually in tables F1, accompanying the police workforce statistics. The latest data, covering the situation as at 31 March 2021 are available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1005990/police-workforce-mar21-tables.ods, and below.

The data in this table includes the number of police officers working under in ‘Road Policing’ functions.

Table 1 below summarises the total number of full-time equivalent (FTE) police officers dedicated to ‘Road Policing’ functions as at 31 March 2019 and 2021.

Table 1: Total full-time equivalent police officers dedicated to ‘Road Policing’ functions in the 39 territorial police forces in England

Notes:

1. Police workers with multiple responsibilities (or designations) are recorded under their primary role or function.
2. Some smaller forces have employees who work within units whose function is to provide both roads policing and armed policing, therefore comparisons over time should be made with caution.