FOI REF: FOI/2023/4987
You asked
I would like to request the total number of police employees, separated by officers and staff (if possible) in each force area, that died as a result of suicide for the following years 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023.
We said
Thank you for your request.
Data on occupation is coded using the Standard Occupation Classification (SOC 2010). In all, there are 9 major groups of occupations (for example, skilled trades occupations); 25 sub-major groups (for example, skilled construction and building trades); 90 minor groups (for example, building finishing trades); and more than 350 individual occupations (for example, painters and decorators). Full lists of occupations used in the analysis are reported in the accompanying data tables, and descriptions of these can be found in ONS Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Hierarchy. The report is structured so that it describes larger categories of occupations before moving on to describe risk in specific occupations. Please be made aware that we have limited information on ranks as per SOC coding and only the following breakdowns are held:
1172 Senior police officers
3312 Police officers (sergeant and below)
3315 Police community support officers
Please note, suspected suicide deaths are investigated by a coroner in an inquest. The amount of time it takes to hold an inquest causes a delay between the date of death and the date of death registration, referred to as a registration delay. Registration delays for deaths caused by suicide tend to be 5 to 6 months on average. More information about the impact of registration delays is available here. Data for 2022 will not be published until late 2023 to allow the inclusion of this data.
We hold the following analysis on the topic requested: Suicide by occupation, England and Wales, 2011 to 2021 registrations. Table 4 of this publication has suicide information pertaining to Police officers, broken down by sex from 2011 to 2021.
Unfortunately, we are unable to disclose statistics per individual police force. This information would constitute personal information about individuals owing to the very low figures involved. We are also unable to provide information about particular institutions, as this would constitute personal information about a body corporate.
Section 39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA) renders it a criminal offence to disclose information held by the Statistics Board (ONS) for statistical purposes that would identify an individual or a body corporate. As we are prohibited by law from publishing statistics in which individuals can be identified, Section 44(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) applies.
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