  We report on the determination of electron densities, and their impact on the
outflow masses and rates, measured in the central few hundred parsecs of 11
local luminous active galaxies. We show that the peak of the integrated line
emission in the AGN is significantly offset from the systemic velocity as
traced by the stellar absorption features, indicating that the profiles are
dominated by outflow. In contrast, matched inactive galaxies are characterised
by a systemic peak and weaker outflow wing. We present three independent
estimates of the electron density in these AGN, discussing the merits of the
different methods. The electron density derived from the [SII] doublet is
significantly lower than than that found with a method developed in the last
decade using auroral and transauroral lines, as well as a recently introduced
method based on the ionization parameter. The reason is that, for gas
photoionized by an AGN, much of the [SII] emission arises in an extended
partially ionized zone where the implicit assumption that the electron density
traces the hydrogen density is invalid. We propose ways to deal with this
situation and we derive the associated outflow rates for ionized gas, which are
in the range 0.001--0.5 M$_{\odot}$yr$^{-1}$ for our AGN sample. We compare
these outflow rates to the relation between $\dot{M}_{out}$ and $L_{AGN}$ in
the literature, and argue that it may need to be modified and rescaled towards
lower mass outflow rates.
