Written question asked by Ivan Henderson (Labour) on Wednesday, 14 July 2004, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 1 September 2004. It was answered by Hazel Blears (Labour) on Wednesday, 1 September 2004 on behalf of the Home Office.

Home Office

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what changes there have been in police numbers in (a) the Harwich constituency, (b) Tendring district and (c) Essex since 1997. - Inc table.

Answer: Mr. Ivan Henderson: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what changes there have been in police numbers in (a) the Harwich constituency, (b) Tendring district and (c) Essex since 1997. [184995] Ms Blears: The table sets out police strength in Essex since March 1997. Information on the number of officers within Basic Command Units has only been collected from March 2002. It is not possible to identify the number of officers at constituency level. The deployment of officers to Divisions is a matter for the Chief Constable (David Stevens) and within the D (Tendring) Division deployment of officers is a matter for the Divisional Commander. _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Officer strength Essex police1 D (Tendering) Division 31 March 1997 2,961 -- 31 March 1998 2,928 -- 31 March 1999 2,891 -- 31 March 2000 2,806 -- 31 March 2001 2,887 -- 31 March 2002 2,946 178.2 31 March 2003 3,007 169 31 May 2004 3,130 Not available2 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. 1 Source for 1997 to March 2003 is the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate (RDS). May 2004 was collected separately outside of the normal data collection arrangements and has not been subject to the same validation as RDS data. 2 Basic Command Unit data for 31 March 2004 will be published later in the year.

Secondary information