The data for police officers are taken from the Home Office Statistical Bulletin series “Police Service Strength England and Wales” which was first published in 1998, so the data are available from 1998 onwards. The data for operational police officers have been centrally collected since 2003, so the data are available from 2003 onwards. The available data are given in the following table.
Total officers per 100,000 population3 Total operational officers per 100,000 population3 1998 193 — 1999 190 — 2000 183 — 2001 179 — 2002 181 — 2003 186 177 2004 192 182 2005 198 187 2006 203 192 20074 203 196 1 Full-time equivalent. This figure includes those on career breaks or maternity/paternity leave. 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. 3 Officers per 100,000 population for City of London and Metropolitan Police are combined. 4 Functional group totals do not match published figures. Data quality may be an issue with this force.