Police Officer Uplift - 945/23

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

I’m a journalist writing to you with a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, for application data regarding the Police Officer Uplift recruitment programme, April 2020 - March 2023.

For the entirety of the Police Officer Uplift recruitment programme (April 2020 - March 2023):

1. Please provide the total number of applications your force received.

2. Please provide a break down of these applications by Gender, Ethnicity (ONS 4+1)

When requested for clarification, you advised:

To be clearer, I would like to know how many Uplift applications you received, and to have that number broken down by the following categories.

By ethnicity:

• White
• Black
• Asian
• Mixed
• Other
• Prefer not to say
• Not stated

By gender:

• Male
• Female
• Non-binary
• Prefer to self describe
• Prefer not to say
• Not stated

Or the closest categories you have available in your records.

In Response:

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the People Services Department of Northumbria Police.  I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.

I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.

1. During the period 01/04/2020 and 31/03/2023 there were 6078 applications made to Northumbria Police.

2.

Application break down by gender:

Gender	Number of Applications
Male	3220
Female	2590
Prefer to self describe	10
Prefer not to say	32
Not stated/Unknown	226
Grand Total	6078

 

Application break down by ethnicity:

Ethnicity	Number of Applications
White - English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/British	5304
White - Irish	25
White - Gypsy or Irish Traveller	4
White - any other background/ any other white background	170
Mixed - White and Black Caribbean	15
Mixed - White and Black African	11
Mixed - White and Asian	36
Mixed - Any other Mixed/Multiple ethnic background	32
Asian - Indian	34
Asian - Pakistani	61
Asian - Bangladeshi	25
Asian - Chinese	10
Asian - Any other Asian background	26
Black - English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/British	1
Black - African	32
Black - Caribbean	1
Black - Any other Black/African/Caribbean background	2
Other - Arab	5
Other - Any other ethnic group	15
Prefer not to say	36
Not stated/Unknown	233
Grand Total	6078

 

The below should be noted when viewing the figures above:

• Above data is for the period between 01/04/2020 and 31/03/2023
• Please note applications from deleted accounts will not appear in results.
• Police Now applicants do not apply through Northumbria Police.
• Northumbria Police do not hold ethnicity data in the format ONS4+1. As the applicant states they can get the ONS4+1 from the format it is held, we have not changed our data to the ONS4+1 format.
• Please note new recruits in a calendar year does not directly correlate to applications in that same year. Applicants from one year may be recruited in a later year.
• Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete.  However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes.  The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system.  As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.
• The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.