366 new recruits allocated to Force

9 October 2019

The Force has been allocated 366 of the first 6,000 new officers being taken on through the Government’s three-year drive to recruit 20,000 extra police.

Steve Grange, secretary of West Midlands Police Federation, has welcomed the allocation – the second highest in the country - announced by Home Secretary Priti Patel yesterday after the second meeting of the National Policing Board set up to oversee the recruitment drive and other major policing issues.

“We are in desperate need of more officers so, of course, we are pleased to see the Home Office has prioritised the West Midlands,” says Steve.

“Nationally, the Government’s cuts programme has seen 23,000 police officers taken off the streets while in our Force area we lost 2,201 officers between March 2010 and the start of last month. We now have 6,425 officers serving the West Midlands and that is just not enough – we know that and so do the public.

“It will, of course, take some time before the benefits of these new recruits are felt and first and foremost we have to rise to the challenge of getting all these people recruited by March 2021. This is something the Force is already planning for and we will support that work.

“Let’s hope this is the start of a proper re-investment in policing so that we can effectively serve and protect our communities.”

The allocation has been based on the current force funding formula.

The Metropolitan Police will get 1,369 new recruits. After the West Midlands, the next highest allocations are: Greater Manchester (347), West Yorkshire (256), Merseyside (200), Northumbria (185) and Thames Valley (183).

The lowest allocations go to Warwickshire (41), Dyfed Powys (42), City of London (44), Gloucestershire (46) and Wiltshire (49).

The Home Office campaign, urging people to join the police and ‘Be a force for all’, was launched in the summer and is the largest police recruitment drive in decades.

The Chancellor has put aside funding to support the recruitment of the first wave of up to 6,000 officers. This includes £750 million for 2020-21 and an immediate £45 million to kick-start recruitment.

The remaining 14,000 officers will be recruited in 2021-22 and 2022-23 through extra central funding and will be on top of extra officers hired to fill existing vacancies.