Adapting to Austerity

On average police authorities across England and Wales plan to reduce their expenditure by 14 per cent by 2014/15, while ten forces face a workforce cut that is greater than 50 per cent of their non-frontline staff, according to a report published today by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC).

The Adapting to Austerity report found that authorities and forces have made a good start in developing plans for the Comprehensive Spending Review period, but they need to transform their efficiency if they are to succeed in sustaining services while cutting costs.

34,100 jobs are to being shed from across the UK’s 43 police forces as part the broader ‘Adapting to Austerity’ drive aimed at shaving 14% from their budgets.

Jobs losses have already begun, with more than 10,000, predominately back office workers having been cut.

The scale of the losses will likely see a 2% reduction in the number of officers, despite assurances from Home Secretary, Theresa May, that frontline services would be spared from cuts. Critics have blasted the plans, claiming crime will inevitably skyrocket, though Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary dispute this.

HMIC found that protecting the frontline will be very challenging over the next eighteen months as two thirds of the cuts to central government funding fall within the first two CSR years (2011/12 and 2012/13). Forces will have to transform their efficiency if they are to protect frontline services.

Estimated data at this stage from 42 police forces shows that they plan to cut frontline numbers by 2% between March 2010 and March 2012 with the rest of the workforce reducing by 11% over the same period. This suggests forces are making efforts to protect frontline roles. Data available limits assessment beyond March 2012, but if the cut to frontline numbers is to remain modest, the non-frontline efficiency would have to be transformed.

Of the 38 forces that provided workforce data for March 2015, 22 forces would have to cut more than 30 per cent of their non-front line workforce in order to protect frontline numbers, and:
 
• Ten forces face a workforce cut that is greater than 50 per cent of their non-frontline workforce;
• Eight forces face a police officer cut that is greater than the number of non-frontline officers in their force; and
• Five forces fall into both of the above categories.

Roger Baker, HMIC inspector, said: “We found authorities and forces are planning relatively modest cuts to frontline numbers this year (2011/12) and they had all set an ambition to reduce crime. But whether they achieve and sustain this is yet to be seen. To sustain this, most forces will have to transform their efficiency. Those forces that start the CSR period as the most efficient and those forces that face the greatest cuts will find this the most difficult.”

What will police cuts add up to in your region?

Those forces that have, in comparison to others, a large proportion of their resources on the front line and a large cut, will find safeguarding or improving service to the public while cutting costs the most challenging.
 
The inspection provided a snapshot in time, all force plans continue to be developed and HMIC anticipates these figures will continue to be refined.
 
Seventeen authorities and forces had plans setting out how they intended to make these cuts, but 26 had not yet worked out how they were going to make all of the savings they needed; this amounted to £0.5bn. All 26 aimed to complete these plans during 2011/12.
 
HMIC also found that the police service will need support and potentially collaborate with other private and public sector organisations to maximise savings.

Police cuts effect on crime

The latest assessment of how police forces will cope in an era of tight funds has reignited the debate over how reductions in officer numbers will impact on crime.

Today's assessment produced by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) also included some estimates produced separately on exactly how crime may rise.

The news outlets above all reported that the estimate was that a ten per cent fall in officer numbers would produce a three per cent rise in crime, quoting the HMIC report in evidence.

But what the report actually states is: “A summary of existing studies would put the elasticity of property crime [emphasis added] in relation to police numbers at approximately -0.3 – that is, a 10 per cent increase in officers will lead to a reduction in crime of around 3 per cent”.

That is to say, that the three per cent figure only applies to property crime, rather than all crime generally. After all the report also notes that the relationships between police numbers and violent crime is “weaker and sometimes contradictory”.

It therefore appears that the three per cent figure cannot be applied across the board for crime, but is a conservative estimate based on the literature available – but for property crime only.

After all, the report also expresses some caveats about whether the simple summaries in the press reports highlighted above are valid.

It states: “A uniform association between police numbers on crime might in these terms be suspicious – one would expect the potential effect of the number of officers on the rate of crime to vary by crime type.”