Don’t ask for more funds, just get on with job, Rudd tells police

AMBER RUDD, the Home Secretary, has told police chiefs to stop asking for more money and get on with the job of fighting crime.

In an apparent slapdown to forces lobbying for better funding arrangements, Ms Rudd said the police could still make efficiencies.

Speaking to the annual conference of Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners, she said increases in reported crimes should not be used as an excuse to ask for more money from the Government.

Ms Rudd said the police had financial reserves of £1.6billion and further savings could still be made.

She told police leaders: “I know a number of you have been calling for more money… we’ve always been clear that decisions about funding need to be based on evidence and not assertion.”

She added: “When crime stats go up, I don’t just want to see you reaching for a pen to write a press release asking for more money from the Government. I want you to tell your local communities and the victims in your area what your plan is to make them safer.”

Her comments came after the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners submitted a report to the Home Office requesting hundreds of millions of pounds to provide an extra 5,000 officers nationwide. Paddy Tipping, the PCC for Nottinghamshire, said it was a “bit rich” for the Home Secretary to ask them what they needed and then criticise them for answering.

He said: “We were asked to write this report for the Home Office, it’s been written in cooperation with them, and so it is a bit rich now for the Home Secretary to say ‘put your pens down lads’.”

The debate over police funding has intensified ahead of the budget later this month and the police settlement, which is due to be finalised before the end of the year. A string of terror attacks across the country has placed unprecedented pressures on police forces at a time when officer numbers have been falling dramatically.

Last month it also emerged there had been a 13 per cent rise in recorded crime.

Earlier this week, Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said it was “incredible to think” her force was being asked to cut a further £400million from its budget.

The Met has also warned that it may have to scale back on dealing with less serious crime unless they get more money from the Government.

Craig Mackey, Deputy Commissioner, warned there would be “severe consequences” for London if the realterms reduction in funding continued.

Editorial Comment:

Crime is at its lowest level since the midnineties, when the number of offences rose to record highs. But there have been signs in recent months that the 20-year downward trend has stalled and might be going into reverse. Certainly Sara Thornton, the chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), fears as much. She told a conference of senior officers in London that recent figures showing crime on the rise once more were not a “blip” and asked: “Could this be the beginning of the end of the great crime decline?”

Volume crime, such as burglary and car theft, is likely to remain historically low because home and vehicle security have improved markedly in recent years. The real worry is that assault and violence are on the increase, especially in the cities – although how much this is attributable to different methods of recording is difficult to assess.

It is the job of the police to keep the streets safe, yet they claim budget cuts are making this hard to achieve because they have been forced to reduce the number of officers at a time when they have so many other duties to perform. At the same conference, however, Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, told the police chiefs to stop asking for more money and to give people a “plan to make them safer” instead.

In difficult financial circumstances, the police clearly need to make judgments about how they deploy their officers. The public expects them to give priority to combating crimes against the person and public disorder by retaining a visible presence. For its part, the Government must give them the tools to do so. That means ending the ill-judged constraints on stop and search that were introduced by Theresa May when she was home secretary.