It has been widely reported that 6,000 Police officers were on duty in London on Sunday (after the first day of riots) which was beefed up to 16,000 with the support of other Police forces this week. It has also been widely reported that the Met has a standing force of around 32,000 – so half the size of the Met is currently patrolling London deterring the rioters and looters. With this level of Police presence in London, the criminal activity has moved to other cities across England. So how can the other Police authorities cope?

In March 2011, the Home Office published their figures on the number of officers in each of the 43 Police authorities in England and Wales.The main figures are a headcount by gender/rank per Police authority, so a caveat to the original Home Office figures is that it does not indicate part or full time officers – just the number that have the authority to arrest people. The figures also do not mention CID, so presumably these figures include detectives. Scottish Government and PSNI figures don’t have a breakdown by rank and gender.

Nevertheless, assuming each officer performs 5 eight-hour shifts per week (which is considered the norm at the Met), and assuming that each shift has the same number of officers, and just looking at sergeants and constables (years of watching The Bill show that Inspectors and above rarely venture out of the station), then the maximum number of officers available for front-line duty in each shift can be ascertained. Again, bear in mind these numbers include detectives, officers providing evidence in court, sick leave, annual leave etc, then you can see why the Met only had 6,000 officers (out of 30,000) after the first day of London rioting – 6,000 is the most they can get on the street at any time at short notice and without compromising the sustainability of providing that level of presence over a prolonged period. The BBC has also reported that 16,000 is 5 times the number that would normally be on patrol – i.e. around half the “front-line” officers during a normal shift are not actually out on patrol performing front-line duties.

Grim reading for other authorities too – Greater Manchester Police would have had 1,450 officers out last night – assuming they anticipated the riots, hadn’t sent officers to London and hadn’t had officers working overtime. It also suggests that normally they would have around 725 on patrol at any given time.

The table below is based on Home Office, PSNI and Scottish Government figures published in March and April 2011 and available under the Open Government Licence. ABBStract can seek out, collate and format all kinds of data for different purposes.