Police Funding

Lord Paddick Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, first, the responsibility lies with Ministers. I have repeated an apology, which as Minister in the Lords I make to this House, for the error. Ministerial responsibility is clear on that.

On the specifics, the letter was sent on 5 November to Devon and Cornwall Police and the first the Policing Minister knew of that was when it was drawn to his attention on Friday 6 November and the decision was taken today, on Monday. The proposal put forward to address this error is that the proposed introduction of the new formula, which was to come into effect in the new financial year—April 2016-17—will now be delayed. The initial plan is that it will be delayed for a year, but at this point we are talking about very soon after. We realise that we have shaken a lot of confidence in the process, and it is very important that we talk to police and crime commissioners, chief constables and others, to make sure that we get this absolutely right.

On the cost issue, that will be looked at as part of the overall review into how this happened, but more importantly, how we move forward with the system that will command the confidence of the police. On the question of when people will know, the comprehensive spending review will report in the Autumn Statement on 27 November, and traditionally the police grant is announced on about 17 December. The specific force allocations will be known on 17 December and the broad envelope will be known on 27 November.

On independent oversight, which is very important, my right honourable friend the Policing Minister has indicated that he will seek independent oversight of the statistical process and the input of data into the system, but again we are genuinely contrite about the error and want to make sure that we get it right.

[Lord Paddick (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister not agree that at a time when forces have already faced a 19% cut in their budgets, and could face a further 30% cut as a result of the comprehensive spending review, this is not a good time to introduce a new police funding formula that would, by definition, reduce the funding for some forces by even more than potentially 30%? However flawed the existing funding formula is, should it not be a case of better the devil you know?

[Lord Bates]

With the benefit of hindsight, of course, there is an element of that. Going back to the initial point when we started the review process, before July, most police forces, as the noble Lord will know very well, complained that the existing funding formula was opaque and nobody quite knew how it was put together. It seemed that in terms of funding allocations there was an inbuilt unfairness to certain forces over others, which did not actually mean that scarce resources were being focused on where crime was happening and, therefore, where resources were needed most by the police to respond to it. So everybody is in favour of the review. The consultation went very well, with 1,700 responses. The letter went out on 21 July and was reflected on. Again, in an effort to be transparent, my right honourable friend the Policing Minister then issued a provisional calculation of what the effect might be on police force budgets for the 2016-17 year. The error came to light at the conclusion of that. Therefore, I think there is still a case for looking at a simplified formula but a lesson has been learned. We need to go away, look at it again and come back with broader proposals that address the concerns the police have.