Gloucestershire Constabulary has revised its neighbourhood policing figures downwards by 66% after an ‘administrative error’ resulted in an inflation of the official numbers of police officers on the beat.
The revision came as a result of an exercise commissioned by the Home Secretary and carried out by the National Police Chiefs’ Council to ensure accurate reporting of officers serving in neighbourhood roles. The issues were found during a data validation process aimed at establishing a precise picture of the number of officers serving in neighbourhood roles. It was discovered that officers with specialized functions and investigative resources were mistakenly included in the count of neighbourhood police officers.
The Home Office’s data validation exercise revealed discrepancies in the workforce statistics published by the previous government. Out of the 43 forces in England and Wales, 29 advised that their combined neighbourhood officer and PCSO numbers should be revised down, while four forces revised their figures upwards. In total, there was a downward revision of 2,611 officers compared to the figures published last year.
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Gloucestershire Constabulary attributed the inaccuracies to an administrative error where specialist functions, investigative resources, and patrol were mistakenly included in the neighbourhood policing category. The Home Office found that the error was primarily related to unique post identifiers in a recently implemented HR System, which the constabulary is working to update. The force has since corrected the error and updated the Home Office with the accurate figures.
The inaccuracies do not impact the overall police numbers, but they do indicate that the actual number of neighbourhood police officers across the country had been artificially inflated in recent years. The government is responding to this by introducing the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee to ensure that everyone has a named contactable police officer.
The Home Office has issued new instructions and guidance to forces to prevent similar errors in the future and ensure accurate recording of neighbourhood policing. The department will now require robust neighbourhood policing data returns from individual forces on a monthly basis to track the workforce more closely and direct improvements to raise standards across the service.
The correction of the neighbourhood policing figures in Gloucestershire highlights the importance of accurate reporting and the need for a clear understanding of the state of neighbourhood policing in communities.