PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
West Mercia Police: Recruitment (2 November 2021)

The Home Office collects and publishes data on the number of joiners to the police service in England and Wales on an annual 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 show that West Mercia Police recruited a total of 622 full-time equivalent police officers between the financial years ending 31 March 2019 and 2021, excluding transfers.

While the ‘Police workforce, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin remains the key measure of the size of the police workforce, as part of the Police Officer Uplift Programme, the Home Office also publishes a quarterly update on the number of officers (headcount) in England and Wales, including the number of new recruits. Data are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/police-officer-uplift-statistics

As at 30 September 2021 there were 2,329 officers in West Mercia Police. West Mercia Police has recruited 155 additional officers (headcount) out of an allocated total of 184 additional officers for years one and two of the uplift combined. Allocations for year 3 and the remaining 8,000 officers towards the 20,000 are yet to be confirmed.