THE number of officers at Humberside Police is the highest it has been in more than a decade.

The latest staff data shows officer numbers in the force have returned to the level they were at in 2010 with 2,075 police officers, and police staff numbers are also increasing again.

In 2016 officer numbers were the lowest in the force’s history at around 1,500.

Joint work by Police and Crime Commissioner, Keith Hunter and Chief Constable, Lee Freeman, has resulted in over 500 new officers since 2016, with the recent Government uplift of 90 officers that means the force has seen around a 30 per cent increase in police officers in the last four years.

Humberside Police receives around 70 per cent of its total funding from the Government, the other 30 per cent comes from the policing precept you pay as part of your annual council tax bill.

A spokesperson from the Police and Crime Commissioner office said: “Around 80 per cent of the total budget is spent on staff, so you can see that when Government make the level of cuts police saw in recent years, and all other options to save money have been explored, the only thing the police can do to balance the books is to reduce staff.”

From the start of the comprehensive spending review until 2016 the force lost over a quarter of its workforce. PCSO’s also saw their numbers reduced by around 25 per cent.

Since the Government began its Comprehensive Spending Review in 2010, most public sector organisations saw considerable reductions in their annual budgets, and policing was no exception.

Cuts to police funding will always take a toll on the number of police officers and staff available to prevent crime and protect the public.