FAQ Details
Front Line Policing - 284/12
Dated: 07 Jun 2011
Date of request: 14/03/2012
Date of response: 11/04/2012
Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')(FOIA)
Thank you for your email dated 14 March 2012 in which you made a request for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria Police.
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
I am hoping you can supply me with some information regarding officer strengths in terms of policing strengths (I am happy with percentages, and do not need absolute numbers)
I would like to know the split of officers between those working in front line roles - Response, CID, NPT, Traffic, Specialist units and those working in all other roles (training, HR, IT, DoI, HQ).
I am not looking for breakdowns geographically.
If you have different or other definitions of what a front line officer is, please send this information, as well as your definition.
In response:
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the HR Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.
I have decided to disclose the located information to you as follows.
The below data is based on Home Office classifications. Data is as forecast for April 2012.
| Role | Total |
|---|---|
| Response | 43.50% |
| CID | 3.56% |
| Neighbourhoods | 15.77% |
| Traffic | 4.45% |
| CID Specialist Units | 6.00% |
| Dogs | 1.30% |
| Marine | 0.29% |
| Mounted | 0.21% |
| Other roles | 24.93% |
| Total | 100.00% |
Although there are many roles within policing who have an important role to play, it is those Police and Community Support Officers who are in daily contact with the public delivering visible policing services who represent what our communities see as the front line.
Northumbria Police is committed to maintaining visible policing services to our communities - as delivered by 24/7 response officers, neighbourhood policing teams and the Community Support Officers who patrol our neighbourhoods. We also have detectives who continue to work with neighbourhood teams.
"Other roles" includes a wide variety of policing roles including; firearms, protecting vulnerable people teams, intelligence, fraud, custody and training - to name but a few.
Where vacancies arise in visible policing services we will fill them with officers from other areas of the organisation.
For information - we regularly ask our communities where and when they want to see us to ensure we are providing the local service that our communities need.
You may be interested to know that Northumbria Police routinely publish information that has been disclosed by Northumbria Police in response to requests made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 via the Disclosure Log. The aim of the Disclosure Log is to promote openness and transparency by voluntarily placing information into the public arena.
Whilst it is not possible to publish all responses we will endeavour to publish those where we feel that the information disclosed is in the public interest. The Disclosure Log will be updated once responses have been sent to the requester. I have provided the relevant link below:-
http://www.northumbria.police.uk/foi/disclosurelog/index.asp
The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.
How to complain
If you are unhappy with our decision or do not consider that we have handled your request properly and we are unable to resolve this issue informally, you are entitled to make a formal complaint to us under our complaints procedure which can be found at: http://www.northumbria.police.uk/foi/disclosurelog/foicomprights.asp
If you are still unhappy after we have investigated your complaint and reported to you the outcome, you may complain directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office and request that they investigate to ascertain whether we have dealt with your request in accordance with the Act.