To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will list by English police authority (a) the population covered by that authority, (b) the authorised police establishment for that authority, (c) the actual police establishment for that authority, (d) the total arrests made in that authority, (e) the number of arrests made per actual police officer, (f) the total number of reported crimes, (g) the number of crimes per officer, (h) the total number of crimes per 1,000 population and (i) the total number of reported crimes unsolved per 1,000 population for the last 10 years for which figures are available. (177566)

The information requested is as follows:

(a) The available data, based on mid year estimates from the Office for National Statistics, are given in Table 1 placed in the House Libraries.

(b), (c) Authorised establishments were abolished by the Police and Magistrates' Courts Act 1994. It is a matter for each chief constable in consultation with the police authority to determine the number of police officers a force would have. Information on police service strength is published annually in the Home Office Statistical Bulletin series “Police Service Strength, England and Wales” and details for officers are given in Table 2 placed in the House Libraries.

(d) The arrests collection undertaken by the Ministry of Justice provides data on persons arrested for recorded crime (notifiable offences) only. The available information is given in the Table 3, placed in the House Libraries, by police force area, from 1999-2000 (previous years data are unreliable) to 2005-06 (latest available).

(e) Information on arrests rates is not collected centrally and, from the information available centrally, arrests rates cannot be computed with any accuracy. Numbers of arrests are only collected by the Ministry of Justice on a recorded crime (notifiable offences) basis and from the Home Office data on numbers of police officers; one does not know the duties to which they have been assigned.

(f), (g), (h), (i) The available data are given in Tables 4, 5 and 6, placed in the House Libraries.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the average length of service of police officers is in (a) Sussex, (b) Kent, (c) Surrey and (d) the Metropolitan police; and if she will make a statement. (186355)

[holding answer 18 February 2008]: The information requested cannot be calculated from the centrally collected data within the police personnel statistics series. Length of service data are only collected in a number of fixed time bands and are set out in the following table.