Police Grant Report

Part of Bill Presented – in the House of Commons at 2:01 pm on 4 February 2009.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Paul Holmes Paul Holmes Liberal Democrat, Chesterfield 2:01, 4 February 2009

That is a very welcome commitment, but it is difficult to see how the Government can react quickly enough to deal with certain population flows. I have spoken to the staff of schools in inner-city areas of Birmingham and London that have had problems. With rapidly fluctuating pupil numbers, it is difficult to get the money flowing fast enough to make a difference rather than provide it two years later. However, I hope that the Government will be able to take action on that.

Another major issue is the levelling off of police authorities' potential to make cash efficiencies. The Home Office document "Efficiency and Productivity Strategy for the Police Service 2008-11" states:

"The financial climate of the next three years will be tougher and achieving significant cashable improvements in efficiency and productivity over 2008-11 will therefore be central to delivering the Police Service's mission of delivering community safety."

However, the APA points out that in the past 10 years more than £2 billion of efficiency savings have been made, most of which have been recycled into meeting new police demands and supporting the delivery of the service. However, it observes that that has become increasingly difficult in the past year or two, and that in the next few years it will become almost impossible for efficiency savings to be addressed directly to dealing with budget shortfalls. It states that

"the longer term prospects worsen considerably" because, added to the factors that I have listed, the recession means that there will be a loss of interest income from investments, reduced proceeds from property sales and increased costs of imported goods. It gives the specific example that uniforms, which are generally imported, and some specialist equipment that is imported have already increased in cost by 30 per cent. in the past few months, due to exchange rate changes. The council tax base is nearly static due to continued capping, and the recession is creating more low-level crimes such as burglary, shoplifting, robbery and shed breaking. All those things cause increased demands on the police.

The most recent quarterly crime statistics, and figures released following a freedom of information request by The Independent, show increasing crime—a widely predicted result of the recession. On 17 January, The Independent gave the example of forces such as Greater Manchester, Suffolk, Gloucestershire and Cumbria, all of which had seen

"increases of between 25 and 50 per cent. Lincolnshire police saw the biggest rise, a 97 per cent. increase in robbery between September and November—the most recent three-month period collated by the force—compared with the same three-month period the previous year."

Those figures were more up to date than those that the Home Office released a month later, which raises the point that we have often made about the need for believable independent statistics. If the Government were to pass the responsibility for the figures entirely to the Office for National Statistics, that would remove all the questions about their validity and their early or late issue for political reasons. The statistics that were produced, partly through a freedom of information request, showed a clear increase in crime at the lower level of burglary, shed breaking, robbery and so on, co-ordinating with the start of the recession. That was exactly what history told us was likely.

A rise in crime produces more work for the police and puts more strain on them. It means that they need more manpower and potentially more overtime, yet all that comes at a time of tightening and eventually decreasing budgets and falling police numbers. Police authorities need some specific answers. First, will the specific central Government funding for PCSOs, and for the substantial number of police who are funded by direct special grants rather than the general grant, remain in place after 2011, to which date it is guaranteed?

Secondly, the Government brought forward £3 billion of capital spending to assist in economic recovery, but none of it went towards improvements in the police estate. We are told that the Government are preparing a further tranche of that funding as part of the forthcoming Budget. Do the Government have any further plans to release capital investment in the police estate? That would boost the construction industry, create jobs and, above all, take pressure off local police authority budgets where there are dilapidated police stations that need replacing and other facilities that need improvement.

The issues that we have considered so far apply generally to all 43 police authorities in England and Wales. However, some issues apply more to specific police authorities. For example, 15 police authorities—just under 30 per cent.—were affected by the Icelandic banking crisis. The outcome of the crisis, and, therefore, its full impact, remain unclear and will be for some time. The increasing uncertainty and risk for the affected authorities is a cause of great concern, and the Government have provided support so far. Continuing Government support for repaying the loans involved is required, especially if repayment is delayed or money has to be written off as a result of what happened in Iceland.

Another much bigger and longer-running issue affects some but by no means all police authorities, and several hon. Members referred to it earlier. It is the formula for funding police authorities. To the Government's credit, after saying that they would tackle the matter in 1997 when they came to power, they eventually introduced a fairer funding formula nearly 10 years later. However, they told the worst-hit authorities that it would be years before the underfunding was made up. Telling police authorities that they were underfunded by specific amounts but that they could not have the money caused consternation. As yet, no date has been set for ending the floors and ceilings mechanisms and the underfunding of so many authorities.

The Minister has already referred to the fact that all the police authorities in the east midlands, parts of which we both represent—in Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, the Minister's area of Nottinghamshire and my area of Derbyshire—are affected, as are many others throughout the country. He said this afternoon that the formula is being reviewed again for 2011 onwards. However, let us remember the history.

Before 1997, the shire counties that lost out worst from the funding formula had a long-running campaign—the F40 campaign. In 1997, the Government said that they would review the position. In 2006-07, nine years later, they introduced the new formula but said that they could not provide the money that they admitted authorities needed.

I shall now be slightly parochial. Last year, Derbyshire was the fourth worst-funded police authority in England and Wales. This year, it sank to third lowest, with only Suffolk and Essex in a worse position. Under the new, "fair" formula that was introduced in 2006-07, Derbyshire has lost £16 million so far. The Government say that Derbyshire needs that money to provide adequate policing, but that it cannot have it. This year, Derbyshire will lose another £5 million, and another £5 million in the subsequent year. That is equal to 3 per cent. of the force's entire budget every year and more than 160 police officers on the beat.

Derbyshire has had to plug the gaps in the underfunding by using its reserves, but they are coming to an end. In a year or two, there will be no more reserves to plug the gap in the funding that the Government say that Derbyshire needs, but that they will not provide. It is impossible to understand why the worst funded authorities in the country, some of which, like Derbyshire, have experienced the problem for more than 20 years, must bear the brunt of a tight police grant settlement.

Police officers and constituents in Chesterfield simply cannot understand that we are the third worst-funded police authority in the country yet we must continue to be underfunded because of overall problems with the police grant.

The Minister said that he had received only 15 representations this year—far fewer than last year. Perhaps police authorities have simply given up because they meet the same stonewalling every year. Will the Minister offer any genuine hope to the worst-funded authorities, such as Derbyshire, that all the unequal funding of recent years will end? After all, the councils and fire authorities that suffered from the funding formula have had their historic problem removed and levelled out much more quickly. Why are police authorities singled out to bear the brunt of what the Government admit was an unfair formula, saying that they should have more money, but that they cannot have it?