Home Department written question – answered at on 23 February 2009.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate she has made of the average number of hours per day a police officer spent on patrol in 2007-08.
It is not possible to calculate the number of hours per day spent on patrol, because different forces will have different shift patterns and hence different numbers of hours per day.
However, 13.8 per cent. of police officer time in England and Wales was spent on patrol in 2007-08.
Time spent on patrol is defined as the time when an officer is patrolling but engaged on no other duties. A fuller picture of the activities undertaken by a police officer will include not only time on patrol but also other core duties such as responding to 999 calls or community involvement activities. In 2007-08, 64.9 per cent. of police officer time in England and Wales was spent on such front-line duties.
All the figures quoted above exclude Staffordshire, for which data are not available.
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