The Police Uplift Programme
Summary
The Home Office (the Department) has overall responsibility for policing in England and Wales. It allocates central government funding and decides how this is divided between the 43 territorial forces. Funding for police forces fell substantially after 2009-10, in line with government objectives to reduce the deficit. Between then and 2017-18, police officer numbers reduced by more than 21,000 to 122,405 full-time equivalent officers. Responding to this pressure on funding, and the changing nature of demands on policing, Policing Vision 2025 set out how future local policing would be tailored to society’s complex and diverse needs built on evidence-based demand analysis, with more specialist capabilities and an agile and professional workforce.
In July 2019, the government announced plans to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers in England and Wales by the end of March 2023. This represents a planned net increase, and to meet the target, while compensating for resignations and retirements, forces will have to recruit approximately 50,000 officers over the three years. The Department established the Police Uplift Programme (the Programme) to help forces to achieve this. It committed to putting the new officers on the streets to reduce crime, protect communities and respond to changing demands on policing.
This report examines whether the Department is well placed to deliver value for money from the Programme. It covers the:
- aims of the Programme (Part One);
- management of the Programme and progress against its objectives (Part Two); and
- challenges in maximising the impact from the Programme (Part Three).
It is too early to assess whether the additional officers are delivering the wider aims of government to improve public safety and help to reduce crime, as they will need time to become fully effective in their roles. Furthermore, improvements in wider criminal justice outcomes depend on many more factors than the number of police officers. This report focuses on progress to date in recruitment, and how the Department plans to demonstrate the impact of the additional officers in the future.