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Officer numbers will fall further as budgets frozen next year

Met identifies massive shortfall as Home Office says it?s up to council taxpayers to keep funding up
Published - 15/12/2016 By - Ian Weinfass - Police Oracle

The Home Office says police and crime commissioners can maintain force budgets – as long as they have increased council tax to the maximum level possible.

Funding announced this morning by the department keeps overall police funding levels “protected at flat cash levels compared to 2015/16” in 2017/18, provided local politicians have already charged the public more in tax.

Boris Johnson’s council tax freeze when he was Mayor of London has been identified in a report from government as delivering a bigger cut to a force budget than any other PCC since 2015.

In a separate document out today, the Met warns it has a £440 million budget gap until 2021 and will “need to reduce officer numbers considerably over the next four years” as a result.

A number of forces who were allowed to raise council tax by more than two per cent this year will again be allowed to do so - up to £5 for a band D household.

The Home Office’s aborted reform of the police funding formula has not yet been completed.

Forces have lost more than 20,000 officers since cuts began in earnest in 2010, although the impact has not yet been as pronounced in London as elsewhere.

Former ACPO finance chief Tim Brain said a funding freeze does not take account of inflation or any rising costs, or even account for the expected one per cent pay rise for officers predicted for next year.

He told PoliceOracle.com: “It’s not as bad as it could have been, but it is not as good as some would have you believe. 

“I fully expect we will see yet another reduction in police staffing levels in this current year and again into next year.”

The Met says a one per cent pay rise for officers will cost it around £25 million extra next year, and with no increase to its budget this equates to losing 1,000 officers over four years.

Other funding announcements included today are a £4.2 million cut to the National Police Air Service budget – which is expected to fall until 2018, and another £100 million funding for the stalled Emergency Services Network upgrade.

While the department has also announced an “additional” £40 million for the police transformation fund, it has immediately allocated £32 million of that to the armed policing uplift elsewhere.

In his statement to Parliament Policing Minister Brandon Lewis said: “The government is committed to protecting the public.

“The government will provide the resources necessary for the police to do their critical work, and prioritise finishing the job of police reform by enabling the police to transform so they can tackle changing crime, deal with previously hidden crimes and protect the vulnerable.

“Since 2010 we have seen some of the biggest changes to policing in a generation. Crime is down by over a quarter according to the Independent Crime Survey for England and Wales.

"There is significantly greater local accountability and transparency and police leaders have taken the opportunity to radically reform the way they deliver services to the public. 

“Police officers have been taken out of back office roles and resources focused on front line delivery.”

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