Police Authorities (Funding Allocations)

Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2010 Written Statements

[The Minister for Police (Nick Herbert)]

As part of the Government’s plan to cut the budget deficit and get the economy moving again, I am today confirming my intention to require the police to make a fair share of the savings needed. I welcome the responsible and constructive way in which policing partners have already responded to the Chancellor’s announcement of his plans to reduce the national budget deficit.

Total Home Office cuts will be £367 million and in order to minimise the impact on the police service the Home Office will cut a greater than proportionate share of its central budget by bearing down on overheads and reducing waste, including significant cuts to consultancy services, marketing costs and travel. However, the police need to contribute towards the overall reduction and I will therefore ask every police authority to make a fair share of savings.

As a result, I intend to reduce this year’s core Government funding to the police by a total of £125 million. I intend to implement this by reducing the Home Office core police settlement and the capital grant. I will, in due course, formally lay before Parliament an amended police grant report for 2010-11 which will be subject to the usual debate and approval process.

Even after this reduction, Government funding to the police will still increase by £124 million this year to around £9.61 billion. Set out below are updated force allocations for the individual grants which I intend to revise. These have been calculated so that each force will face a cut equivalent to the same percentage of their core Government funding.

I am confident that savings of less than 1% of expected spending in 2010-11 by Police Authorities can be made while maintaining a frontline policing service. It is for chief constables to use their expertise and decide what makes most sense for their force, but I am quite clear that this saving can be achieved by driving out wasteful spending on support functions, reducing bureaucracy and increasing efficiency in key functions—leaving the frontline of policing strong and secure. I expect forces to be held to this by both police authorities and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary.

For my part, I am clear that the police should be focused on police work, not paperwork. This is why I am committed to cutting the centrally imposed red tape and bureaucracy that slows police officers down and keeps them off the streets and away from protecting the public.

The Government have shown their commitment to the police service by undertaking to honour the third year of the current pay settlement for police officers. Our programme for Government has set out measures to ensure a sustainable frontline police service, including a full review of the remuneration and conditions of service for police officers and staff. We also commit in our programme for Government to establishing an independent commission to review the long-term affordability of public sector pensions, while protecting accrued rights. The Government are determined to ensure that we can provide affordable pensions to public servants into the future.

The spending review reporting in the autumn of this year will set funding levels beyond 2010-11.