ANALYSIS: When does 13,000 actually mean 3,000? When it is the government’s pledge on neighbourhood police officers.

In the run up to the General Election Yvette Cooper, then Shadow Home Secretary, promised 13,000 more neighbourhood officers. Now most people could be excused for thinking that meant police constables. As I warned at the time, this was never what was intended, and now the Home Office is publishing the official details of the so-called Neighbourhood Guarantee. The reality is very different. In fact the Home Office will fund just 3,000 police constables across the whole country.

To be clear at the start: any increase in police officer numbers and resources will be welcomed in Thames Valley. We have already got more police officers than ever before, well beyond the previous high in 2010, and working with the Chief Constable we have doubled the number in neighbourhood policing.

They are also supported by fantastic Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs), Special Constables (part-time volunteer police officers) and just as importantly police staff, who play a vital role. All of these roles are important, but from headlines such as we saw in The Times this week “Keir Starmer pledges 13,000 more neighbourhood police officers” more reasonable people might think that’s what you’re getting.

So where are the numbers coming from? Here’s the breakdown:

4,000 Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs)

I think PCSOs are great. Brilliant at community engagement, less likely to be abstracted to deal with critical incidents. I absolutely want to see more of them. That’s why in Thames Valley we’re currently recruiting for PCSOs (if you’re interested you can find out more and apply here). Currently however we’re struggling to fill the vacancies we’ve got, it’s not about the money to recruit. So I’ll welcome more funding for PCSOs, but it’s not what was promised and they won’t suddenly appear on the streets.

3,000 Special Constables

Specials are just that - very special. They do a full days work and the give time to their community out of hours. They have the same powers as any other police constable but they don’t get paid. I’m currently supporting a Private Members Bill that is going through Parliament to provide better employment protection to allow Specials to give their time to policing. However they are only ever going to be part-time. So not only are the Home Office not paying the salaries of 3,000 police officers, but they won’t even make up anywhere close to the total amount of policing time. Although many Specials do more, the minimum is 18 hours a month. Again in Thames Valley we have already begun to invest in Specials. They are contributing more hours to policing and we’re recruiting (click here if you’re interested), but it is misleading to suggest that this is the same as 3,000 full time police officers as part of a government pledge.

3,000 existing officers

The last government overachieved on the previous uplift programme. Roughly speaking the famous 20,000 police officers ended up being 23,000 actually recruited. The current government are effectively banking these and counting them in their own numbers. As mentioned above we’ve already begun to increase the numbers of officers in neighbourhood teams, but what the government seems to be wanting now is for Chief Constables to re-allocate 3,000 officers nationally from other roles to help make up their numbers. Aside from being a clear interference in operational policing by the Home Office, there is a real question about where these police officers will come from. Should they be taken from Roads Policing? Or detectives taken away from domestic abuse investigations and put back on the streets. This is not investment in new resources to keep the public safe but simply shuffling resources around to make the numbers add up.

3,000 new police constables

For those of you who have been following this maths, this leaves 3,000 new police constable posts that will be funded by the Home Office. At the time of writing the way in which those officers will be allocated across the country isn’t clear. Neither is there any guarantee that they will be fully funded. We already have a shortfall of £3.2m from decisions made by the government since the election on funding of the police pay rise and national insurance. The best assumption however, based on the current funding formula is that Thames Valley would get funding for an additional 91 police officers locally. Thames Valley Police are recruiting now anyway, so if you want to be part of that number - here’s how.

So potentially - funding for 91 new police constables for neighbourhood policing in Thames Valley. Now that’s not to be sniffed at, I’ll be very pleased to allocate the funding and ask the Chief Constable to increase recruitment again. However it is a far cry from the 394 police officers that someone could reasonably have expected there would be if they believed the 13,000 pledge.

People would be right to ask, when are we going to get the other 10,000 police officers that were promised.