Government knows about police funding
A COUNTY police chief has hit out at the Government over its claims that it was ignorant of the effects of funding changes.
Leicestershire Police and Crime Commissioner Lord Willy Bach slammed the Home Office for its apparent ignorance of how changes in finance were affecting policing.
He said: “We have repeatedly raised the mounting funding pressures with national and local politicians on both sides of the House.
“We’ve had letters published in the national press highlighting the financial plight facing policing.
“I therefore find it very difficult to believe that the Home Office does not understand the consequences of its actions.
“If this is the case, when senior officers and police and crime commissioners have made the point consistently over many years, they have either not listened to our arguments nor read their correspondence.”
He made the comments in response to a Government report that said the Home Office’s “light touch” approach to overseeing police forces “means it does not know if the police system is financially sustainable”.
The National Audit Office report said that the Home Office also lacks a long-term policing plan and that it understands little of demand for police services and their costs.
It said: “The way the Department chooses to distribute funding has been ineffective and detached from the changing nature of policing for too long, and it cannot
be sure overall funding is being directed to the right places.
“With plans to reform the funding formula on hold, and no systematic approach to ensuring forces are financially sustainable, we cannot conclude that the Home Office’s oversight of the police system is value for money.”
Lord Bach said: “This report confirms what I have been saying for a long time and in February 2017 I wrote a joint letter with the Chief Constable, Simon Cole, to Home Office ministers drawing their attention to the pressures facing Leicestershire Police.
“Our population is growing, and criminality is changing.
“Police numbers locally have fallen by more than 20 per cent as a direct result of government austerity.”
The police chief said he had repeatedly raised the issue with national and local politicians on both sides of the House.
He said: “In real terms, the Government’s Police Grant has reduced by 30% since 2010/11.
“As a result, here in Leicestershire, our total funding, which includes the amount local people pay towards policing through their council tax, has fallen by at least £36m.”
He said he welcomed the report and hoped it would provide a wake up call to the Home Office that “a fair and sustainable funding deal for policing is long overdue”.