Almost 600 police officers recruited in Yorkshire in Government's fight against crime

More than 500 police officers have been recruited across the Yorkshire region as part of the Government's campaign to have an additional 20,000 bobbies on the beat over the next three years.

A total of 579 additional officers have been recruited, according to police officer uplift statistics published today, meaning the Government is on track to hit its 20,000 target campaign ahead of schedule.

Yorkshire's largest force - West Yorkshire Police - has recruited an additional 308 officers, followed by Humberside Police with 99, South Yorkshire Police with 89 and North Yorkshire Police with 83.

The Home Office has said the new officers will be used in the crucial fight against Coronavirus as well as cutting crime.

Across the country, almost 6,000 officers have been hired in the first year of the Government's recruitment drive to sign up 20,000 by 2023.

The overall provisional headcount of officers in England and Wales is now 134,885, according to Home Office figures to the end of September.

This includes 5,824 hired as part of the 20,000 pledge, a quarterly report on the progress of the scheme said, suggesting the recruitment campaign is on track to meet its first year target of 6,000 by March 2021.

So far, 107,656 applications to become a police officer have been received since the campaign launched in October last year.

Data gathered since April indicates 39 per cent of new recruits are women and around 10 per cent, of those who stated their ethnicity, were from black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds.

The new recruits hired as part of the campaign are in addition to those filling existing vacancies or joining police forces as a result of other job adverts.

Police officer numbers in England and Wales fell by more than 20,000 between 2009 and 2018.

The Government is using headcount figures to measure the number of police officers now being hired, saying this is the "most appropriate way" to track recruitment rather than looking at figures for full-time equivalent (FTE) positions, because new recruits tend to start their career on a full-time basis.

According to the latest available overall police workforce figures, at the end of March the officer headcount was 131,576 while the number of FTE officers was 129,110, a 2 per cent difference.

The Home Office previously said the number of FTE officers had risen for a second year running, showing the largest annual increase since 2003/4, up 5 per cent since March 2019 from 123,189 to 129,110 FTE officers.

While this is also the highest number of officers since March 2013, the figures indicate this is still 10 per cent lower than the peak at the same period in 2009 (143,769), showing a 14,659 drop in FTE officers.