Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how much funding they have provided directly to (1) the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, and (2) the National Police Chiefs Council, since 1 May 2020.

Home Office Ministers and senior officials have regular bilateral meetings with the Chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) and the Chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC).

Since May 2022, the Home Secretary has held pre-arranged meetings with the Chair of the APCC six times, and on two of those occasions the Policing Minister also joined. The Policing Minister has separately held pre-arranged meetings with the Chair of the APCC five times since May 2022. The Home Office Permanent Secretary and the Director General for Public Safety Group have met with the Chair of the APCC a combined total of seven times since May 2022.

Government records for pre-arranged meetings with the Chair of the NPCC since May 2022 are incomplete. The Home Secretary has held pre-arranged meetings with the Chair of the NPCC four times since April 2023. The Policing Minister has held pre-arranged meetings with the Chair of the NPCC eight times since January 2023. The Home Office Permanent Secretary and the Director General for Public Safety have met with the Chair of the NPCC a combined total of twenty-six times since May 2022.

Alongside engagement through bilateral meetings, both the Chair of the APCC and Chair of the NPCC sit on the National Policing Board (NPB), the Home Office’s most senior policing board. The NPB meets quarterly and is chaired by the Home Secretary, with Home Office Ministers attending where relevant. The NPB has met 7 times since May 2022. The terms of reference and minutes are published online on Gov.uk, with minutes from the most recent meeting in April due to be published shortly.

In the 2023/24 financial year, the APCC were provided with a £1m grant, and a further £1m has been provided in the 2024/25 financial year, to give them additional capacity to help strengthen the PCC role and tackle key challenges across the criminal justice sector.

Between financial year 2020/21 and 2023/24 the NPCC have received a total of £10,113,939 from the Home Office as part of the NPCC Operating Model programme, which exists to deliver a stronger central strategic coordination for policing via a NPCC Strategic Hub. Separately to that, the NPCC receive a range of other funding from the Home Office for specific programmes or areas of work that are considered on a case-by-case basis