Tax rises will hand police £600m to fight crime
POLICE forces are to get a £600 million cash boost in a bid to crack down on violence in Wild West Britain – paid for with a council tax hike.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid has thrashed out a deal with Chancellor Philip Hammond and Communities Secretary James Brokenshire to double the amount that local authorities can add to council tax bills for policing.
The amount police and crime commissioners will be able to impose will rise from £1 a month to £2 a month from April 2019. It means an extra £24 per household each year.
It is intended to allow forces to pay for more frontline officers in a bid to halt the sickening violence engulfing Britain. If all 43 police forces in England and Wales raise the precept by £24 for each Band D household, it will generate a total of £450 million.
Critics will blast the move as a ‘stealth council tax rise’ at a time when crimes recorded by police have risen to 5.6 million, the highest for more than a decade. On average a crime is committed every six seconds.
As well as the increase in council tax, it is understood the Home Office and Treasury could also commit another £170 million to general police funding. It comes on top of an extra £160 million for counter-terrorism announced by Mr Hammond in the Budget last month.
Police chiefs have warned ministers that forces are struggling to cope folby lowing deep cuts to funding which has seen it fall 19 per cent in real terms since 2010-11 to £12.3 billion this year. And since 2009, the number of police and PCSOs has plummeted from 160,000 to 132,000.
In September, a damning report found that forces were ‘struggling’ to keep the public safe following funding cuts and an upsurge in crime.
Chief constables were finding it ‘increasingly difficult’ to deliver an effective service, said Britain’s spending watchdog.
Spiralling ‘low-volume, high-harm’ crime such as sex attacks, gun and knife offences, and the heightened terror threat, was ramping up pressure on police budgets, according to the National Audit Office.
After last month’s Budget, Mr Javid said he was ‘ deeply worried’ about the street violence as he hinted at a funding boost in the annual financial settlement. He said: ‘I think resources is part of the issue, making sure that police – as they deal with more of these complex situations – have the resources they need.
‘What we saw in this Budget was a Chancellor that was listening. He listened to the needs of the defence service and health and others and he set out quite rightly that he’s going to listen to the needs of the police, so I am very confident that he’s listening.’
The new settlement could be announced as early as next week, but has yet to be signed off by the Home Office.
One Government source said Mr Javid had been pushing for a £30-ayear precept on council tax bills.
‘Listen to the needs of police’
POLICE dodged bricks and fireworks as they were surrounded by 100 teenagers and attacked by a gang of violent youths.
Officers yesterday released footage of the brawl as they called on parents to ‘step up to the plate’ and take responsibility for their children’s ‘appalling behaviour’.
One PCSO was punched in the face by a child in the fracas at a bus stop in Stanley, Co Durham, with officers forced to use pepper spray to disperse the mob.
They had been called to help a drunk teenage girl but were mobbed by a 100-strong group – some as young as ten – ‘behaving like a pack of animals’. As they
tried to disperse the crowd a ‘ hard- core group’ of 20 drunk yobs in hoodies threw bricks and lit fireworks while others punched and kicked police officers.
The disturbance was caused by a gang of children who congregate in Stanley’s town centre
at night where they drink and take drugs, leaving locals too terrified to get buses.
Sergeant Emma Kay, from Durham Police, yesterday urged parents to take responsibility for their children as she released
footage of the incident on the night of November 3.
She said: ‘Parents were asked to come and review the footage from the officers’ body cams that night. They all agreed the behaviour of their children was appalling.
‘We are asking for parents to step up to the plate, take responsibility for your children.’
Local mother Kelley Stothard, 39, said: ‘They all stand around here, 40 to 50 teenagers up there. They’re as young as ten. Then there are another 40 near the tunnel, they’re just everywhere.
‘I think they’re drinking and taking drugs. People are going for taxis rather than buses. The taxi drivers are getting egged every night and abuse every night.’
Scotland Yard Commissioner Cressida Dick said attacks on
officers are getting worse, as some film incidents and treat them like a game.
She told Channel 5 News: ‘I think what you see absolutely looks like it’s getting worse.’
Meanwhile, heads say violence against them from pupils and parents has got ‘palpably worse’ in recent years.
A poll of 140 school leaders found three quarters were physically assaulted in the last year. Some suffered broken bones.
One head was ‘so badly kicked and bruised’, it was hard to see the colour of her skin afterwards.
Other serious incidents included heads being threatened with knives and even attacked by teenage gangs, according to the Times Educational Supplement (TES).