Force Investigators (242A/21)
Request
Under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide me with full answers to each of the following questions regarding your force’s investigator numbers:
How many full-time equivalent investigators, of all ranks, did your force have as of January 1st 2021?
What was the equivalent figure for January 1st 2020?
What is your force’s current shortage of investigator – eg how many positions are vacant/unfilled?
During 2020, how many retired investigators were rehired by your force?
How much money did your force spend on hiring civilian investigators via recruitment agencies in 2020?
Note: In case of confusion as to which officers are classed as investigators, please use the same classifications as in the Home Office police workforce data (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-workforce-england-and-wales-31-march-2020) ie Investigations Command Team, Major Investigation Unit, Economic Crime, Specialist Investigation Units, Serious & Organised Crime Unit, Local Investigation and Cyber Crime. You do not need to include the investigative support category ie forensics.
Response
Please find attached our response.
Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.
If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.