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Police: Road Traffic

Volume 461: debated on Wednesday 20 June 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which police forces have a dedicated roads policing division; how many officers there are in each such division; and what percentage each figure represents of the force’s total number of officers. (142958)

Force organisation and deployment of resources are matters for individual chief officers of police. Information is therefore not available in the form requested. Information on the number of officers in each force whose main function is traffic and the percentage this represents of the force’s total number of officers is in the table as follows.

Police officers whose main function is Traffic1 (FTE)2 by police force area as at 31 March 2006

31 March 2006

Percentage of officers whose main function is Traffic from total strength

Avon and Somerset

215

6.2

Bedfordshire

81

6.6

Cambridgeshire

99

6.8

Cheshire

85

3.9

Cleveland

61

3.6

Cumbria

111

8.7

Derbyshire

119

5.7

Devon and Cornwall

215

6.1

Dorset

81

5.4

Durham

105

6.1

Dyfed Powys

143

12.0

Essex

243

7.3

Gloucestershire

73

5.6

Greater Manchester

342

4.2

Gwent

102

7.0

Hampshire

240

6.3

Hertfordshire

149

6.9

Humberside

181

8.1

Kent

116

3.2

Lancashire

197

5.4

Leicestershire

77

3.4

Lincolnshire

102

8.2

London, City of

24

2.7

Merseyside

138

3.2

Metropolitan Police

603

1.9

Norfolk

112

7.1

Northamptonshire

63

4.7

Northumbria

167

4.1

North Wales

81

5.0

North Yorkshire

97

5.9

Nottinghamshire

134

5.3

South Wales

243

7.3

South Yorkshire

141

4.3

Staffordshire

28

1.2

Suffolk

80

6.1

Surrey

99

5.1

Sussex

160

5.1

Thames Valley

236

5.5

Warwickshire

97

9.3

West Mercia

116

4.9

West Midlands

401

4.9

West Yorkshire

343

6.0

Wiltshire

13

1.1

1 Staff with multiple responsibilities (or designations) are recorded under their primary role or function. The traffic function includes staff who are predominantly employed on motorcycles or in patrol vehicles for the policing of traffic and motorway related duties. This does not include officers employed in accident investigation, vehicle examination and radar duties.

2 This and other tables contain full-time equivalent figures that have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Because of rounding, there may be an apparent discrepancy between totals and the sums of the constituent items. Includes those on career breaks or maternity/paternity leave.