SPECIALIST police officers could be deployed to every borough and district in Surrey to tackle knife crime and County Lines drug problems, according to a new report.

There will be one Youth Intervention Police Constable assigned to all 11 borough and district local authorities in the county under plans to increase police officer numbers.

Their focus will be to tackle “the increasing threat of knife crime, county lines and being drawn into criminal exploitation”, according to a report compiled by Surrey’s Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC).

The specialist officers are among the 100 posts to be created and saved by the ten per cent increase of the council tax police precept. Under plans drawn up by Surrey PCC Mr Munro, the £3.8 million generated from the tax rise will help increase the number of front-line offices in the county, with 75 new posts being generated and 25 positions being protected from cuts.

These include 22 more Neighbourhood Support Officers (NSOs) and an extra 36 Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs), as well as at least one safeguarding detective per borough or district focusing on tackling exploitation and missing people.

Figures in the report on planned investments to be presented to Surrey Police and Crime Panel on Friday, April 5 show demands on police officers to search for missing children has gone up by 380 per cent in six years, from 597 in 2012 to 2,866 in 2018. For missing adults during the same time, this rose by 306 per cent to 2,464.

And the number of cases relating to rape and serious sexual offences in Surrey increased by 302 per cent from 238 to 957.