Police: Parental Leave
Home Department
Jeremy Browne (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Taunton, Liberal Democrat)
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police officers took (a) maternity leave, (b) paternity leave and (c) a career break in each year since 1997.
Tony McNulty (Minister of State, Home Office; Harrow East, Labour)
The available data is in the table; they are from the 2002-03 financial year onwards and relate to long-term absences as at the end of each financial year.
| Police officers (FTE)( 1) on long-term absence as at 31 March 2003 to 31 March 2006( 2) | |||
| As at 31 March each year | Maternity leave | Paternity leave | Career break |
| 2003(3) | 291 | 7 | 626 |
| 2004 | 642 | 27 | 750 |
| 2005(4) | 617 | 41 | 867 |
| 2006 | 713 | 31 | 1,124 |
| (1) Full-time equivalent figures that have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Because of rounding these figures may not match published totals. (2 )Data are available from 2002-03 onwards. (3 )Data are not available for Dyfed-Powys, Nottinghamshire, Sussex and West Midlands. (4 )Data are not available for North Wales. | |||