New fears have emerged about the scale of abuse suffered by children and vulnerable adults after Scotland Yard revealed its officers were raising concerns with the safeguarding authorities on average 700 times a day.

Figures obtained by the Guardian show referrals relate to a range of alleged and suspected abuses, including sexual exploitation, forced marriage and bullying.

Data released under freedom of information (FoI) legislation shows that nearly 1.3m records were created in the capital over the past five years – an average of about 700 a day – informing local safeguarding authorities about officers’ concerns for children and vulnerable adults.

The information is held on Scotland Yard’s Merlin database, which was originally designed to record children “coming to notice” but later expanded to include vulnerable adults, allowing officers to flag up individuals at risk. Local councils are responsible for safeguarding through various mechanisms such as social services and children’s services.

The figures underline the pressures safeguarding authorities are coming under daily as well as the demand on police forces to deal with issues beyond traditional policing at a time when police budgets and officer numbers are being squeezed.

Earlier this month, figures revealed the number of detectives investigating the most serious offences in England and Wales had fallen by at least 610, or 28%, between 2010-11 and 2017-18, while the detection rates for homicide, which includes the suspected offences of murder and manslaughter, fell by more than 10%.

Many factors affect crime outcomes, but one of the biggest has been the 19% cut in government funding since the Conservatives took power in 2010.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan police said: “The number of records created over the last five years is indicative of how seriously police take these matters. The Met will continue to create reports for any incident where a person may be at risk, or poses a risk to themselves or others, regardless of the situation.”

But Almudena Lara, the head of policy at the NSPCC, said the safeguarding system was under excessive strain: “It is heartbreaking to think that every single day, police in the capital are coming across hundreds of vulnerable children and having to flag concerns for their safety.

“Many of these children could have been previously invisible to local children’s services so it is a valuable tool. But if there aren’t the resources in place to deal with these referrals, the children will just disappear back under the radar.

“The government needs to ensure local authorities are properly resourced so they are able to step in and support these children whenever and wherever they need it.”

The largest number of records related to “child care/welfare”, with 472,307 in the five years to the end of 2018, the data shows, while domestic violence led to 138,551 records. Missing persons generated 87,980 records in the period.

Bullying concerns were the subject of 26,083 in the last five years, while child sexual exploitation generated 19,688 alerts to local safeguarding authorities. Forced marriage cases led to the creation of 390 records on the database, while concerns for the welfare of an unborn child led to 12,496.

Elsewhere, the data revealed that there had been 1,004 records over the five years for criminal activity committed by a child under 10, the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales. There had also been 555 records relating to female genital mutilation concerns.

Among adult-specific categories, 4,405 records for “adult welfare concerns” were made. A total of 3,526 were recorded separately as at risk of harm due to age, and 408 deemed at risk of harm due to disability. The total entered on the database rose steadily from 2014 to 2017, peaking at 279,132 before dipping to 258,930 in 2018.

Since 2010, when the Conservatives came to power in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, the London mayor’s office for policing and crime said the capital had lost 3,000 police officers, another 3,000 police community support officers and 5,000 civilian staff. The Met has made £850m in cuts, including selling its headquarters.

The data was provided to the Guardian after an FoI request about safeguarding referrals. Other forces provided some information, although it was not comparable on a like-for-like basis with the Met police data.

Sussex police made 63,259 referrals to child social services between 2014-15 and 2016-17 – 60 a day – while Cambridgeshire police made 47,988 for child protection in the five years between 2014 and 2018 – 27 a day.

South Wales police were able to show at least 8,214 child protection referrals between mid-2017 and early 2019, as well as 4,304 adult-at-risk referrals. Gwent police recorded 23,932 referrals between 2015 and 2018.

Last week, the Met police commissioner, Cressida Dick lamented the “woefully low” rates for solving crimes, adding that courts are “emptying” despite some offences rising.

Talking to an audience in London at the thinktank the Police Foundation, Dick said she was not proud of low detection rates for some crimes. Official figures for England and Wales show rape down to a 4% detection rate and an overall detection rate for all recorded offences of 9%.