“What we're also doing is removing vast amounts of bureaucracy that have tied the police up and meant that at any point in time, we know, again from HMIC, that only 11 per cent of those police officers that I'm talking about are available on the streets.”

Theresa May, The Andrew Marr Show, 31 October 2010

Since cuts of 23 per cent were announced to the Home office's budget in last month's Spending Review, speculation has been rife about how this may translate into job losses in police forces.

The Police Federation has warned that up to 40,000 police posts could be at risk, whilst another estimate for Jane's Police Review magazine put the figure at 60,000.

Appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show yesterday, Home Secretary Theresa May attempted to ease these fears, claiming that a significant (but unquantified) proportion of the necessary savings could be raised through efficiency measures. In support of this, she cited a much-remarked-upon report by Full Fact's old friends, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabularies (HMIC).

So does the evidence support the Home Secretary's claims?

Analysis

At first glance it might appear so. The 11 per cent figure quoted by Ms May is indeed used in the HMIC report as an estimate of the number of police officers available for front-line duties.

However the assumption made by the Home Secretary that this is due to “vast amounts of bureaucracy” is one that should be challenged.

As has been noted by the BBC's More or Less programme, the nature of police work is such that the number of staff required vastly exceeds the number “available on the streets”. 

As HMIC acknowledge, the requirement to staff police stations all day, every day means that there are roughly 1,100 shifts for each 'on duty' police officer every year. Given that even those men and women of the thin blue line need time off to eat and sleep, the average police officer will work 260 shifts per year.

This means that for every officer carrying out front-line duties at any given point there will need to be three other officers on the payroll.

Furthermore, once annual leave, sickness and other police duties such as attending court are factored in to the equation, seven police officers are needed for every bobby on the beat. Even before we account for paperwork therefore, only 14 per cent of officers employed by police forces are available for front-line duties.

Conclusion

This is not to suggest that bureaucracy is not perceived to be a problem for police officers: HMIC do indeed note that cutting “needless bureaucracy” could be an important step towards streamlining forces.

However an exclusive link between the 11 per cent figure and 'bureaucracy' is not made in the HMIC report, and cannot be sustained through a closer scrutiny of the numbers. With police budgets likely to be the source of more controversy in the coming months as the impact of the cuts becomes more precisely mapped, it is important that this 11 per cent statistic is not used out of context to suggest politically-expedient savings that are not there to be made.