THE recorded number of assaults on police officers in England and Wales is set to rise dramatically after the Home Office demanded more accurate data from forces.<\/p>\n
Figures published by the Home Office have until now been based on data from forces’ Health and Safety records \u2013 but from this year it will also be seeking crime data.<\/p>\n
According to Government figures for the last financial year \u2013 published in July 2015 \u2013 in South Yorkshire, there were 49 recorded assaults and 155 assaults without injury on a constable recorded last year.<\/p>\n
There were 23,000 assaults on police officers across England and Wales last year.<\/p>\n
The change in recording practices will see a \u201csignificant increase in numbers of those who have been assaulted\u201d, according to John Apter, the Chairman of Hampshire Police Federation, who has been leading the push for more accurate numbers of police assaults.<\/p>\n
Neil Bowles, Chairman of South Yorkshire Police Federation, said: \u201cIt is vital that South Yorkshire Police provides not only the Home Office, but its own managers, the correct data to reflect the numbers of officers being assaulted in the course of their duty.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to know the correct data, before anyone can start to analyse it and come up with solutions to prevent it happening or reducing the severity of the assaults.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThe force has taken our concerns seriously, we have had a Gold Group created, and exploratory research tasked out to actually understand the problem. As a result of this a brand new policy has been created and launched. It pretty much follows the original 7-point plan published by our colleagues from Hampshire.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish to thank the force for taking this seriously. The proof is in the pudding though \u2013 let\u2019s come back to this issue and evaluate the success of the new policy and any lessons learnt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Apter added: \u201cThe Home Office, up until now, have only ever asked forces to provide data from the Health and Safety or the HR reporting system. Now we know from research we\u2019ve done in force probably only about 20% or 25% of actual assaults gets recorded on the Health and Safety system, so there\u2019s a massive disparity.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor this next set of data requirement, which is for 2015\/16, the Home Office have now requested from forces the Health and Safety data, and that is mandatory as it was last year, but the difference this year is they\u2019ve also requested, on a voluntary basis, they\u2019ve also requested the crime data to go alongside it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Apter said \u201cthe pressure now is on forces across England and Wales\u201d to provide their crime data on officer assaults \u2013 whether it is voluntary or not.<\/p>\n