Written question asked by Christopher Fraser (Conservative) on Friday, 26 January 2007, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 30 January 2007. It was answered by Tony McNulty (Labour) on Friday, 2 February 2007 on behalf of the Home Office.

Police

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many (a) full-time, fully trained police officers and (b) police community support officers Norfolk constabulary had in each of the last 10 years.

Answer

The available data are given in the tables.

Police officer strength¹ (FTE)² by police force as at 31 March 1997 to 31 March 2006
Norfolk police force	Full-time equivalent
31 March 1997	1,432
31 March 1998	1,430
31 March 1999	1,381
31 March 2000	1,381
31 March 2001	1,420
31 March 2002	1,468
31 March 2003	1,499
31 March 2004	1,510
31 March 2005	1,544
31 March 2006	1,557
¹ This table contains full-time equivalent figures that have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Because of rounding, there may be an apparent discrepancy between totals and the sums of the constituent items.
² Full-time equivalent excludes those on career breaks or maternity/paternity leave.

Police community support officer strength¹ (FTE)² by police force as at 31 March 2003 to 31 March 2006³
Norfolk police force	Full-time equivalent
31 March 2003	12
31 March 2004	33
31 March 20054	68
31 March 20064	65
¹ This table contains full-time equivalent figures that have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Because of rounding, there may be an apparent discrepancy between totals and the sums of the constituent items.
² Full-time equivalent includes those on career breaks or maternity/paternity leave.
³ Police community support officers were introduced in statute in 2002, therefore data are not available prior to 2002-03.
4 Strength figures as at 31 March 2005 onwards include those staff on career breaks or maternity/paternity leave. Therefore these figures are not comparable with those provided for other years in the table.

Secondary information