[holding answer 15 December 2008]: The arrests collection held by the Home Office covers arrests for recorded crime (notifiable offences) only.
The data requested are given in the following table covering the period from 1999-2000 (previous years data are unreliable) to 2006-07 (latest available). There is no link from these centrally reported data to any subsequent outcome.
Data for 2007-08 are due to be published in early 2008-09.
Number of arrests 1999-2000 1,277,900 2000-01 1,264,200 2001-02 1,271,900 2002-03 1,313,100 2003-04 1,330,400 2004-05 1,353,400 2005-06 1,429,800 2006-07 1,482,200 Note: Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used.