Only BBC Scotland has headlined a story of police officers under pressure, yet only Scotland has less crime and more officers.

BBC England, Wales and Northern Ireland have no such report today.

Let’s look at the ‘work’ first.

While I feel sure there are other tasks un-connected with crime, the level of crime in a country must be the major factor in pressure on police officers. If it’s not, then perhaps the senior officers need to think about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.

Recorded crime is lower in Scotland and much lower than in England & Wales. It has continued to fall even in the last decade which BBC Scotland wants to focus on.

Notably the BBC Scotland report says :

‘Recorded crime is said to be at its lowest level since 1974 and the latest statistics show that overall satisfaction following contact with the police stands at 69%.’

Why didn’t they present the actual figures and replace ‘said to be’ with ‘are?’

Are there fewer officers in line with falling ‘work?’

BBC Scotland claims:

Scotland now has 16,600 police officers, the lowest number since 2008 and roughly 900 fewer than when the national force came into being.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-65125754

That’s a 5.4% fall in police staffing in the same decade as recorded crime also fell from 72.4 cases per 1 000 population to 52.4%, a 27.6% fall.

How does staffing compare with the other three nations?

We can use the House of Commons Library briefing to calculate a comparable metric on police officer numbers in 2020.

	England	Wales	NI	Scotland
Police numbers (FTE) in 2020 (HoCL)	125,276	7,191	6,917	17,234
Population size (HoCL table)	56,286,900	3,152,900
Population size (ONS mid 2019 estimate)	56,286,961	3,152,879	1,893,667	5,463,300
FTEs per 100,000	223	228	365	315

Hey! Scotland does have far more officers per head than England & Wales but Northern Ireland has more officers per head than Scotland!

Special circumstances?