Growth under the Neighbourhood Policing Programme, as at 28 February 2026: management information

Product Description

In December 2024, under the Safer Streets Mission, and as part of the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee (NPG), the government announced a commitment to put 13,000 more policing personnel into neighbourhood policing roles. Forces could access funding from 1 April 2025 on the basis that they demonstrated growth in their neighbourhood policing teams.

Across England and Wales, forces agreed to deliver 2,972 full-time equivalent (FTE) police officers and PCSOs by the end of the first financial year, covering the period 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026. This target was first surpassed in January 2026, and this ad-hoc release reports on the latest neighbourhood policing growth data, as at 28 February 2026.

The data in this release is derived from management information (MI) provided by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC). Individual force plans are available in table NHP2 of the Neighbourhood Policing data tables published alongside the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales, as at 30 September 2025’ release, and this publication provides an early indication that the government’s target of 2,972 additional neighbourhood police personnel for the first year of the NPP has been met.

This is the second growth milestone reported under the NPP; growth as at 30 September 2025 was first published in an ad-hoc release on 20 January 2026 as MI and was later published as Official Statistics in the regular Police Workforce, England and Wales: 30 September 2025 publication.