Police numbers clarity called for
LEICESTERSHIRE Police and Crime Commissioner Lord Willy Bach has called for clarity on the Government’s pledge to boost police officer numbers across the UK – questioning whether enough funding is in place to pay for the uplift.
The PCC said he feared plans to recruit an extra 20,000 new police officers over the next 12 months were underfunded by more than £100m - and that the shortfall would need to be plugged by further efficiency savings.
He was speaking in the House of Lords as part of a debate about the Government’s plans for the year ahead, as outlined in the Queen’s Speech.
While welcoming the national uplift, the PCC told the House that police officer numbers had fallen nationally - by more than 21,000 officers - since 2010 and that reinforcements would simply “cancel” some of the cuts brought by austerity.
And questioning the figures behind the national recruitment plans, he said: “Another challenge that I raise, in a gentle spirit, is this: it looks as though the Government will be allocating £750m to fund the recruitment of these 20,000 new police officers.
“But will police and crime commissioners and chief constables actually receive that money? The figure may be nearer £630m; the rest, as the Government have already said, must come from that old favourite, efficiency savings.
“I fear that the promise of 20,000 police officers set out in the manifesto is underfunded by over £100m. Finding that sort of money for a police force after a decade of austerity, in an environment where approaching ninetenths of the cost are taken up by salaries, will be a challenge, to put it mildly.”
Locally, he said officer numbers in Leicestershire had fallen from over 2,300 in 2010 to 1,800 in 2016, which equates to 500 fewer police officers at a time when the population had grown by 10% to 1.1m.
Recorded crime has also doubled, he added.