Police face ‘difficult challenge’ in spite of extra cops
‘WE STILL HAVE TO FIND SAVINGS’
WEST Yorkshire’s chief constable says the force is facing ‘significant and difficult financial challenges’ despite funding agreed by the government for 256 more officers.
John Robins said the force welcomed the share of national funding, which will pay for 20,000 more police officers nationally over three years.
But he added: “There are still some significant and difficult financial challenges facing West Yorkshire Police over the coming years.”
He said the grant did not include funding for pay increases or inflationary cost increases, adding: “This operationally leaves us in the position where we still have to find savings in a budget that has already been reduced by many millions of pounds over the last 10 years.”
And he said a 75% cut in capital funding was hard to understand when the police force was trying to invest in new IT and buildings.
The funding – first pledged by Prime Minister Boris Johnson on a visit to West Yorkshire last September – was confirmed this week by the government in a promise to invest £15.2 billion nationally in the policing system.
It will allow West Yorkshire Police to recruit 256 new officers by March 2021, yet West Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner (PCC) Mark Burns-Williamson said there would still be 500 fewer police officers in the force than there were in 2010.
He said: “Although the settlement announcement is a step in the right direction and well overdue after a decade of austerity, West Yorkshire still faces many complex and challenging demands.”
Mr Burns-Williamson said he had made repeated calls for a review of police funding. He said: “We know if it was properly reviewed, the evidence and level of demand shows that areas like West Yorkshire should receive many millions more per year.”
The commissioner still thinks that in order to fund many police initiatives, the police precept, the share of funding that comes from Council Tax, will need to be increased to its maximum.
Mr Burns-Williamson said: “As PCC I want to continue increasing frontline policing, putting more police officers in our neighbourhoods and to make sure communities are safe and feel safe, which I know is a priority for many people.
“That will have to mean a precept increase because the Government’s promise to ‘strengthen our police service and tackle unacceptable levels of crime’ will mean some of that money has to come locally to cover all the costs not fully covered in the settlement announced in Parliament.”