Police officer numbers on the rise in last year in Wiltshire
Our county had a bigger increase than the national average
Dozens of extra police officers were hired in Wiltshire over the last year as part of the Government's national recruitment drive, new figures show.
Home Office figures show that there were 1,108 police officers in Wiltshire Police in December, up from 1,052 a year before.
At an increase of 5.3%, this was greater than the average rise of 3.5% across England and Wales’s police forces.
But the plan to boost police ranks has been criticised by the Police Federation of England and Wales for not going far enough following policing cuts over a decade.
Following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s commitment to invest in police forces and increase officer numbers, the Home Office launched the police uplift programme in April 2020 with the aim of recruiting 20,000 new police officers by March 2023.
This would require a 15.6% increase in police officers across the two nations’ police forces over the three-year period.
By December 2021, 11,505 officers had been recruited nationally, a 9% increase.
In Wiltshire, the figure has risen by 8.1% since April 2020, meaning 83 more officers.
Ché Donald, national vice-chairman of the Police Federation, said:
"The current uplift programme to recruit 20,000 additional officers – which is now only halfway there – doesn’t go far enough, as it simply replaces the number of police officers lost during the years of austerity.
"Not only do we have an exponentially expanding population which has grown by 4 million in the last decade, but the level of crime has increased and become far more complex.
"In addition, the time officers spend dealing with non-crime issues, such as helping vulnerable people and those in mental health crises, has also risen."
Mr Donald said the force needs "long-term recruitment and sustainable funding", and that police leaders must focus on retention of staff, as well as recruitment of new officers.
A Home Office spokesperson said:
"Beating crime is the government’s number one priority, that's why we are putting more police on our streets to keep our communities safe."