Police: Finance

(asked on 17th July 2020) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that financial pressures on local authorities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic do not lead to cuts to local police force funding.


Answered by
Baroness Williams of Trafford Portrait
Baroness Williams of Trafford
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
This question was answered on 30th July 2020

The Government has been clear that the police will get the financial support they need to keep our communities safe through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Government took immediate steps to increase the availability of funding for forces to meet cashflow pressures caused by the pandemic. We flexed half of the £168 million Police Uplift ringfenced grant to include expenditure on COVID-19 related pressures for the first six months of the financial year. We also brought forward payment of the £142.6 million police pensions grant, which forces received in April this year.

The Government also recently announced that council tax and business rates collection fund deficits accumulated 2020-21 can be phased over three years rather than paid off in 2021-22. This will give police and other local authorities in England a breathing space when setting their budgets for next year.

The Home Office continues to gather evidence of forces’ additional Covid-19 related expenditures since the introduction of social distancing measures, de-veloped in close consultation with policing sector finance leads. We will use this evidence base to inform cross-Government decisions on the police’s fu-ture funding needs.

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