Officers assaulted while on duty

Freedom of information request reference no: 01.FOI.23.032157

I note you seek access to the following information:

Q1: How many police officers have been assaulted while working in the past 5 years? How many in: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 so far?

Q2: How many police officers have required medical attention due to assaults against them at work during the past 5 years? How many in: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 so far?

Q3: How many police officers have required time off work for mental or physical health recovery resulting from assaults against them at work during the past 5 years? How many in: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 so far?

Q4: How many police officers have been assaulted while working over the past 8 months? How many in: January 2023, February 2023, March 2023, April 2023, June 2023, July 2023, August 2023?

Q5: How many police officers have required medical attention due to assaults against them at work during the past 8 months? How many in: January 2023, February 2023, March 2023, April 2023, June 2023, July 2023, August 2023?

Q6: How many police officers have required time off work for mental or physical health recovery resulting from assaults against them at work during the past 8 months? How many in: January 2023, February 2023, March 2023, April 2023, June 2023, July 2023, August 2023?

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the located information to you in full.

Please find below information pursuant to your request above.

Please find attached information pursuant to your request above.

The information held on the Insight & Data hub only goes back as far as 2019.

Regarding questions 2 and 5 we don’t hold information regarding whether an officer has gone sick or received medical attention due to their injuries or whether an officer has required medical attention due to assaults against them at work.

Regarding questions 1 and 4 below:

Q1 - How many police officers have been assaulted while working in the past 5 years? How many in: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 so far?
Q4 - How many police officers have been assaulted while working over the past 8 months? How many in: January 2023, February 2023, March 2023, April 2023, June 2023, July 2023, August 2023?

Number of Officers assaulted per year:
Year	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023(to Sept)
Total	6072	7193	7028	6750	5217

 

Number of Officers assaulted per month:
2023	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	June	July	Aug	Sept
Total	495	452	556	555	591	651	665	646	606

Regarding questions 3 & 6 below:

Q3 - How many police officers have required time off work for mental or physical health recovery resulting from assaults against them at work during the past 5 years? How many in: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 so far?
Q6 - How many police officers have required time off work for mental or physical health recovery resulting from assaults against them at work during the past 8 months? How many in: January 2023, February 2023, March 2023, April 2023, June 2023, July 2023, August 2023?

There is no central place or cross system functionality between our systems e-safety, PSOP and Cohort to answer questions 3 and 6.

MPS Workforce Planning provided the data below:
We have a category on our PSOP system: ‘Musculo-Skeletal – Assault’ (MSK), please note these figures may not be accurate but I have provided numbers of officers who reported sick due to MSK-Assault in the table below:

Year	Sickness absence due to MSK-Assault
2018	10
2019	17
2020	18
2021	9
2022	12
2023	11

The table below answers question 6

2023
Month
February	2
March	2
April	1
July	3
August	2
September	1