The UK government has fulfilled its pledge to hire an additional 20,000 police officers in England and Wales as part of its uplift scheme. Since 2019, 20,951 more
officers have been employed, taking the total number to 149,572. However, concerns have been raised that the increase has not kept pace with population growth since 2010, with a requirement for thousands more officers.
Furthermore, the number of experienced officers has fallen due to retirement and resignations, with the number of senior full-time police officers also declining. The Public Accounts Committee has linked the drive to recruit new officers to falling levels of experience. Photo by Dani 7C3, Wikimedia commons.