Recommendation 7

As of March 2022, the Programme was on track to deliver the planned number of additional officers. By the end of its first year (2020–21) the Programme had helped police forces to recruit 8,762 police officers, against a target of 6,000. The Programme benefited from commencing recruitment six months prior to the start of 2020–21, meaning that the first ‘year’ of recruitment was in fact 18 months long.8 Police forces maintained this performance during the second year. By the end of March 2022, forces had recruited 13,576 new officers (against a cumulative target of 12,000 over the first two years).9 This means that the Programme will need to recruit around 6,500 additional officers in the final year to meet its overall target. Diversity in policing