Police resource 'challenged' despite more officers

Police resources in the West Midlands remain "challenged" despite an increase in the number of officers, regional board members have been told.

Figures show there were 8,266 police officers as of March, up from 8,102 two years earlier. The number of community support officers has also been maintained at 314.

West Midlands Police's acting Chief Constable Scott Green said he believed a good service was being provided but the force had to cover three million people and crime numbers could not continue to "fall forever".

"We are challenged financially in terms of the resources available to us," he told a monthly accountability and governance board meeting.

"We do believe we are offering a really good service to the public but crime can't continue to fall forever," he added.

"We may well find some of those crimes start plateauing."

In May, it was reported that knife crime in the West Midlands had fallen by 25% in the last two years with a 6% fall in all crime across the region, the biggest drop in England and Wales, recorded last October.

In 2025, Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster announced he had been successful in securing Home Office funding under the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee to pay for 150 new officers.

He told the board meeting - which is held between the force and the PCC to discuss areas including performance, strategies and budgets - that rebuilding community policing remained a top priority for him.

Foster said: "Although we've seen police officer numbers increase and PCSO numbers remain broadly static, how confident can we be that neighbourhood policing in terms of capacity and visibility are improving consistently across all local areas, particularly within the highest demand communities?"

Green added that the investment in neighbourhood policing had enabled them to put resources across the seven local authority areas.

"One of the things we've been consistent on is to try to give chief superintendent of local policing authorities the autonomy to operate within defined guard rails," he said.

"Our expectation is they will stick to those minimum standards but where there are areas the local command team think that more investment from neighbourhood policing is needed, we've given them the freedom to do so.

"It is our continued ambition to invest in neighbourhood policing."

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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