David Ruffley (- Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Bury St Edmunds, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much the Neighbourhood Policing Fund was in each year since 2002-03; and what proportion of funding from the Fund was allocated for police community support officers in each of those years.

David Hanson (Minister of State (Crime and Policing), Home Office; Delyn, Labour)

Neighbourhood policing is central to improving public confidence in the police dealing with crime and antisocial behaviour that matters locally. Since 2002 we have invested heavily to ensure that there is now a neighbourhood policing team in every neighbourhood, including in total more than 13,500 officers and 16,000 PCSOs. We launched the Neighbourhood Policing Fund (NPF) during 2004-05 to incorporate a series of earlier PCSO funding rounds and significantly increase investment in PCSOs and the wider aspects of neighbourhood policing. The table shows the amount of funding allocated to neighbourhood policing and the proportion allocated specifically for PCSOs. This table includes the funding streams prior to the introduction of the NPF.

Funding is made available to police authorities, and it is for each police authority and each police force to allocate resources within the local force area. This funding provides a substantial proportion of each police authority's salary costs of its allocated share of the 16,000 PCSOs. The terms of the grant require that each authority employ at least that allocated number.