Police see funding rise by £15.4m

LEICESTERSHIRE Police will see their funding rise by £15.4m this year - with most of that increase coming from the Government for the first time in five years.

In recent years, council taxpayers have seen their bills for supporting the police go up faster than central government funding.

Between 2015/16 and 2019/20, government funding rose by a below-inflation 1.7% in Leicestershire - from £114.5m to £116.5m.

That’s an extra £2m pounds over four years, when £8.8m was needed to match inflation.

Over the same period, funding from council tax rose by 35.5%, from £53.2m to £72.1m.

However, this year government funding for Leicestershire Police will rise by 9.1%, while funding from council tax will go up by 6.5%.

It means that, of the total £15.4m increase in funding for police in the area for 2020/21 (a 8.2% year on year rise), £10.6m (68.8%) will come from the Government and £4.7 million (30.5%) from council tax.

That’s a reversal from last year, when of the £13.1m increase in funding (a 7.5% rise), £9m (69%) came from council tax and £4m (30.5%) came from central government funding.

Council taxpayers in Leicestershire will still see their bills for policing increase from the equivalent of £223 a year to £233 a year for a Band D property this year.

Despite this boost, police forces have expressed concerns they are facing future financial pressures - with increased costs from dealing with the coronavirus outbreak and fears about reduced council and central government funding.

David Jamieson, the police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands force told the Guardian earlier this month: “There is a significant risk around future council tax income that is going to be a major issue across the public sector including police forces.

“In addition Covid has so far cost West Midlands police around £11m with further costs to come and no guarantee that the Home Office will cover these costs.”

According to the Guardian, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has written to the Home Office asking for urgent support to protect police from “a new era of austerity” and saying he was concerned the Met Police will be unable to afford the early recruitment of 600 new officers as planned and would need to consider recruitment freezes in staff posts.

In response to these reports, the Home Office said the government was working with police forces on the funding they would need in the future and the extra burdens caused by the pandemic.

It said: “This year we have given policing its biggest funding boost in a decade – an increase of up to £1.1bn compared to last year – and this significant investment will help police forces meet financial pressures.

“We have already recruited 3,005 of the additional 20,000 police officers and have no plans to slow down as having more officers on our streets is now more important than ever.”