Policing organisations work in the following key areas:

• promoting safety and reducing disorder
• reducing crime and the fear of crime
• investigating crime
• contributing to the arrest, detention and prosecution of the perpetrators of crime

Under Home Office direction, there are 43 police forces in England and Wales, and 8 in Scotland.  The Police Service of Northern Ireland (formerly the RUC) is divided in to urban and rural.  There are two types of police officer – attested (e.g. Police Constables) and non-attested (e.g. Community Support Officers, Special Constables and support staff).  In addition to the police, there are:

• national and cross-border agencies (National Crimes Squad and National Criminal Intelligence Service)
• the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA)
• non-Home Office forces (e.g. Guernsey Police, British Transport Police; Military Forces etc.)
• revenues and customs law enforcement
• Assets Recovery Agency
• other key organisations including Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) and HMIC Scotland etc.

There are approximately 275,400 employees across an estimated 159 organisations in policing and law enforcement.  In terms of employment levels, it is the largest sub-sector.  Only 33% of organisations employ volunteers.  67% of the workforce are police officers (e.g. constables, sergeants, inspectors etc) and 33% are police staff.  7,718 staff are employed by non-home office forces.  In the UK HM Revenue and Customs law enforcement workforce, there are approximately 7,620 staff, of which 29% are female.

There are approximately 12,240 special constables, which is 8% of the police officer workforce.  The number of special constables has declined over the last few years.

There are approximately 1,800 traffic wardens employed by the police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.  42% of traffic wardens in England and Wales are female and 47% in Northern Ireland. 

In England and Wales, there are approximately 5,700 community support officers (CSOs), of which 38% are female.

Workforce profile:

• 20% of UK police officers and 63% of police staff are female, compared with 49% in the UK workforce
• 22% of all police constables in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are female, 12% are sergeants, and all other ranks are less than 10%
• 3% of UK police officers are from minority ethnic groups
• 36% of police officers are aged 41 years and over in England, Northern Ireland and Wales
• 14% of police officers are over 55 years

Employment levels in this sub-sector are expected to increase to 2014.  Plans are underway to reduce the number of officers and replace them with more beat police officers who do not have the power to arrest.  It is expected that with further mergers less administrative staff will be needed.

60% of the policing workforce are employed within associate professional and technical occupations and 20% within administrative/secretarial occupations.

In 2003/2004, there were 44,657 applications for police officer positions.  Only 17% of applications resulted in appointments, of which 33% were female.  The main recruitment difficulties are for professionals, ‘other support’ staff and administrative/secretarial staff, as is the case across for the UK sector.

Only 17% of police and law enforcement organisations reported internal skill gaps, but 46% of employers believed that skill needs are growing.

Source: Policing and Law Enforcement SNA 2006, Skills for Justice Briefing Paper 2006, Policing and Law Enforcement LMI 2005 and UK Skill Needs Assessment 2005

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