Provisional Police Grant Report (England and Wales) 2025-26

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Written Statements

[The Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention (Dame Diana Johnson)]

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary (Yvette Cooper) has today published the Provisional Police Grant Report (England and Wales) 2025-26. A copy of the provisional report will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and will be available on www.gov.uk. This provisional report sets out the Home Secretary’s determination for 2025-26 of the aggregate amounts of grants that she proposes to pay under section 46(2) of the Police Act 1996. The final report will be laid before the House in the new year following the period of consultation.

Today, the Government have set out the provisional police funding settlement in Parliament for the forthcoming financial year. I am pleased to announce that, for 2025-26, funding to police forces will total up to £17.4 billion, an increase of up to £986.9 million when compared to the 2024-25 police funding settlement—a significant increase, and more than the increase set out for 2024-25. This settlement represents a real terms increase in force funding of 3.5%, and a cash increase of 6%. The additional funding confirmed through this settlement will cover the costs of the police officer pay awards and fund the recruitment and redeployment of more neighbourhood police and PSCOs.

Overall funding for the policing system in England and Wales, including to police forces and wider system funding, will be up to £19.5 billion, an increase of up to £1 billion when compared to the 2024-25 funding settlement, representing a real terms funding increase of 3% and a cash increase of 5.5%. The investments announced today are in additional to the provision of one-off funding of £175 million we announced in July to support the costs of the 24-25 pay award. Taken together, this significant investment reflect this Government’s commitment to restoring confidence in policing and boosting neighbourhood policing, by providing them with the resources they need to invest in their frontline workforce.

Of the £986.9 million of additional funding for police forces, I can confirm that £657.1 million of this is an increase to Government grants, which includes an increase in the core grants of £339 million to ensure police forces are fully equipped to deliver our Safer Streets mission. This also includes £230.3 million to compensate territorial forces for the costs of the change to the employer national insurance contributions from 2025-26, and an additional £100 million to kick-start the first phase of 13,000 additional police officers, PCSOs and special constables into neighbourhood policing roles. This will provide policing with the funding required to tackle crime and keep communities safe.

As set out in the Local Government policy statement of 28 November, PCCs will have the flexibility to raise the police precept to £14 for a Band D property in 2025-26. This could generate up to £329.8 million of additional funding available to police forces compared with 2024-25. This strikes the balance between protecting taxpayers and providing funding for police forces.

We recognise that the Metropolitan Police Service faces increased demands on resources from policing the capital city. Despite this, the National and International Capital City grant has not increased in line with inflation for at least five years and there has been a substantial increase in protest activity in London in recent years. Therefore, as part of the 2025-26 police funding settlement, the Metropolitan Police and City of London Police forces will receive £255.2 million through the National and International Capital City grant; an increase of £65 million when compared to the 2024-25 settlement, equating to a 34.2% cash increase and 31.1% real terms increase.

Attached are accompanying tables that outline how we propose to allocate this funding settlement across various funding streams and local policing bodies for 2025-26.

Today, this Government have confirmed significant increase in funding for police forces. In return, we expect police forces to raise their ambition on efficiencies and drive forward improvements to productivity while helping us deliver on our mission to create safer streets. To enable this, we have launched the Commercial Efficiencies and Collaboration Programme which will initially focus on national buying and frameworks and cost recovery. We are determined to work with policing to maximise the potential of productivity and innovation, ensuring officers are equipped with the tools they need to keep our communities safe and to deliver our mission.

We expect policing to approach the 2025-26 financial year with a focus on delivering the Government’s priorities, as set out in the Prime Minister’s Plan for Change:

Increasing the number of officers, PCSOs and special constables in neighbourhood policing teams;

Tackling violence against women and girls;

Reducing knife crime;

Cracking down on antisocial behaviour;

And by doing these things, increasing public confidence in policing.

In 2025-26, we will be allocating £376.8 million to support forces to maintain officer numbers.

This Government are committed to increasing policing visibility to protect our communities and restore confidence in policing. To support delivery of our Safer Streets mission, our priority is to increase neighbourhood policing roles.

We are grateful to those forces who have gone above and beyond in recruiting additional officers to maximise the strength of their workforce. We expect that these forces prioritise maintaining these officer numbers and have provided funding to achieve this.

Police forces will still be expected to meet officer number targets in return for funding. However, the Home Office has listened to feedback from forces on the need for increased flexibility to help forces manage their finances. We have therefore rebalanced the funding available in core grant and the ringfence for the purpose of maintaining officers for 2025-26.

As well as investing in maintaining police officers, this Government are committed to going further. As part of our pledge to increase policing visibility, improve public perceptions of the police, and create safer streets for our communities, we are providing a £100 million investment for neighbourhood policing. This will fund the recruitment of additional and redeployed neighbourhood police officers, PCSOs and special constables in 25-26. This will form part of a multi-year programme, and kick-start the delivery in 2025-26 of these additional neighbourhood personnel over the course of this Parliament.

The increase in neighbourhood policing will be done in a way that prioritises forces’ operational flexibility. Forces will be allocated funding and propose a planned workforce increase and mix that works best for the communities that they serve. This funding will help forces deliver our neighbourhood policing guarantee, including the restoration of patrols to town centres giving every community a named officer to turn to, and introducing stronger tools for police to tackle persistent antisocial behaviour.

It is essential that we maximise the value of any new investment within policing. We are driving work to reduce inefficiencies and maximise productivity, freeing cashable savings and officer time to reinvest in frontline activities. We will require forces to participate in the recently announced commercial efficiencies and collaboration programme, starting by forces signing up to national approaches to buying energy, vehicles, fuel, temporary staff and software licences. We will work with policing to develop this programme, to unlock immediate cost savings and laying the foundations to deliver hundreds of millions of pounds of efficiency savings by the end of this Parliament.

The programme will initially target several priority areas. These include:

Fleet—Require better use of existing frameworks and working with policing to standardise requirements enabling better value and reducing full life costs.

Energy—working with the sector to ensure policing can harness wider purchasing power across Government and wider public sector.

ICT—ending the variation in prices for software contracts and then moving to smarter purchasing in other areas of technology.

We will build on the foundations of the policing productivity review to tackle bureaucracy, free up officer time for redeployment on to the frontline and improve outcomes. Such as working to eliminate any wasteful and unnecessary redaction of files passing between the police and the CPS or supporting the roll-out of enhanced and rapid video responses to improve response times and victim outcomes.

The review also highlighted that embedding productivity into the culture of policing can ensure that improvements are made to unlock non-cashable and cashable savings. The effective roll out of this technology is vital to achieve these benefits, and we will work closely with the College of Policing to provide implementation and business change support for forces to implement promising and proven technologies, provide a blueprint for measuring those benefits and demonstrate how to best reinvest time saved into delivery of the neighbourhood policing guarantee.

Firearms licensing fees have not increased since 2015 and are now significantly less than the cost of the service provided by police forces. This funding deficit is impacting the effectiveness of police firearms licensing controls and the crucial role they play in safeguarding the public. We therefore intend to lay a statutory instrument when parliamentary time allows to increase firearms licensing fees to provide full-cost recovery for police forces, in line with our manifesto commitment. The additional revenue raised will be retained by police forces to support the important improvements needed in firearms licensing.

In a written ministerial statement on 19 November, HCWS232, the Home Secretary set out some of the core components of our long-term plans for necessary and overdue police reforms. This will be a joint programme of work between Government and policing in recognition that the challenge of rebuilding confidence is a shared one, and we will work closely with policing over the coming months to develop the detail of the proposals. Working closely, and in partnership with, policing, we will publish a police reform White Paper in the spring, outlining our plans for bold and comprehensive reforms to the policing system. The funding set out today reflects Government’s investment in policing and commitment to ensuring forces have adequate resources to protect the public.

To drive excellence across policing, we will consult with police system leaders on plans for a new national centre of policing. While work is under way to determine the scope and scale of the unit, it is expected to include specialist and supportive functions like forensics, aviation and IT, which have become fragmented and underpowered over the last decade. National arrangements on procurement will also generate savings to reinvest into frontline policing.

To drive up performance and standards and ensure communities can have confidence in their local police force, a new performance unit will be established in the Home Office. The unit will harness national data to monitor performance and direct improvements, underpinned by a performance framework developed with the College of Policing, policing inspectorate, National Police Chiefs’ Council and PCCs.

This Government recognise that police forces must have the right systems, capabilities, and support in place to support us on meeting our mission. This settlement includes £914.3 million for the wider policing system, which:

Maintains the police settlement’s investment in tackling serious violence and county lines next year, ensuring the continuation of violence reduction units and supporting all forces in their ongoing work to close county lines.

Ensures the continuation of major law enforcement programmes which will modernise national mission-critical systems, without which policing cannot operate effectively, tackle a range of threats and make our streets safer.

Supports police efficiency and collaboration by investing in national policing capabilities. This funding establishes the new commercial efficiency and collaboration programme, maintains the digital routes through which members of the public can contact the police, and supports the implementation of digital evidence sharing across the criminal justice system.

Supports law enforcement in tackling serious and organised crime by investing in regional organised crime units, ensuring they are supported in tackling some of the highest harm threats.

This does not represent the Government’s total investment in the policing system and law enforcement. In 2025-26, funding for areas including arm’s length bodies, cyber-crime, forensics, fraud, police productivity and innovation, and tackling exploitation and abuse—including violence against women and girls—will be decided as part of the Home Office’s wider budget allocation process, with funding arrangements for specific programmes confirmed in due course.

Ensuring national security is the first duty of any Government. This Government will provide essential support for Counter Terrorism Policing, ensuring that they have the resources they need to deal with the threats we face. Funding for Counter Terrorism Policing will increase by £140 million to £1.2 billion, which includes funding to compensate for the cost of the employer national insurance contribution changes. PCCs will be notified separately of force-level funding allocations for CT policing, which will not be made public for security reasons.

The provisional funding allocations set out in today’s report reflect this Government’s commitment to working with policing and giving it the resources required to bridge the gap between policing and our communities. This is critical for restoring the public sense of safety on our streets.

We understand that funding certainty is crucial for effective financial planning across police forces. Funding for future years will be agreed in phase 2 of the forthcoming spending review. Police reform proposals will be developed alongside this.

Finally, I must use this opportunity to pay tribute to and thank our committed officers and police staff for the remarkable dedication, courage and resilience they show every day to keep this country safe. This investment today is an investment in these brave men and women. We look forward to working with officers and police staff across the country on our shared ambition to make our streets safer.

Attachments can be viewed online at:

http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2024-12-17/HCWS325/

[HCWS325]