Police numbers at all-time high

Home Secretary David Blunkett today announced a record number of police officers - for the second day in a row.

He said the number of police in England and Wales had reached a new high of 136,386 officers at the end of August, up 4,118 since December last year.

Just yesterday the Home Office's statistical department published a full set of data showing there were 133,366 officers at the end of March.

Today's announcement came as Mr Blunkett addressed the Labour party conference in Bournemouth.

Mr Blunkett said the so-called "wider police family" - including civilian staff and traffic wardens - had reached 201,092.

The total included 1,601 Community Support Officers, or CSOs, the civilian wardens with quasi-police powers introduced by Mr Blunkett's controversial police reforms.

He also announced that £22.5 million confiscated from criminals will be spent on community projects and frontline agencies.

He added that £15.5 million would go to a range of projects to improve the way officials track down and confiscate criminals' "dirty money".

Yesterday's statistical breakdown of the 133,366 figure showed the number of black and Asian officers in the police rose by just 0.3% in the year, compared with a 3% rise overall.

It came in the wake of the furore surrounding Supt Ali Dizaei, who last month accused the Metropolitan Police of allowing a "cancer of racism" in its ranks.

Chief Inspector Leroy Logan, chairman of the Metropolitan branch of the National Black Police Association, urged black and Asian people to boycott the force after Iranian-born Supt Dizaei was acquitted on a number of corruption charges.

Forces with the smallest proportions of ethnic minority officers were Cumbria with 0.4% followed by Cheshire and North Wales, both with 0.5%.

Those with the highest proportions were the Met and West Midlands, both with 5.6%.

A Home Office spokeswoman said the number of ethnic minority officers had increased by over 50% since targets were set in 1999.

Representation among police staff as a whole, rather than officers only, was at 6%, already ahead of the 2004 target of 5%, she added.

Other figures from the data showed that only one force, Surrey, had reported a significant fall in the total number of police officers.

The county had 85 fewer, or 4%, while Merseyside, South Yorkshire and Northamptonshire showed falls of 1% or less.

The Metropolitan Police - Britain's largest force - recruited 1,761 officers, or a rise of 7%.

Overall the number of women officers in England and Wales rose to 25,390, or 19% of the headcount total, up 1% year on year.

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