Society’s most vulnerable at the heart of Commissioner’s budget proposals
Leicestershire Police and Crime Commissioner Sir Clive Loader has today (Friday, 23rd January) unveiled proposals to help enhance community safety and protect the most vulnerable in society.
In a report due to be presented to the Police and Crime Panel on Thursday (January 29), Sir Clive will confirm his intention to increase the 2015-16 precept – the amount of council tax the public pay towards policing - by 1.99%.
This equates to an increase of less than 7p a week (or £3.51 a year) for a Band D property but will generate an additional £1.038m to fund policing costs
The increase is intended to enable Sir Clive to build a sustainable base budget that will maintain and safeguard policing services across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland where possible in the future.
In addition, he will announce that he has earmarked up to an additional £2m – to be funded from reserves – to be spent on safeguarding children and vulnerable adults.
Last month, the Force was told its funding settlement from the Government would be cut by a further £5.7m (4.7%) in 2015/16 to a total of £114.5m – this is £1m more than was previously indicated in the Comprehensive Spending Review announced in the Chancellor’s 2013 Autumn Statement and is compounded by a process of ‘top slicing’ to fund national policing initiatives.
Additionally, the Force loses out to a further £5.6m annually as a result of the way the funding formula is applied to produce a blanket 5.1% reduction in cash across all Forces.
Announcing the budget proposals, Sir Clive said: “There is no doubt the funding settlement for next year is arguably the toughest we have faced and there is no sign yet that future budgets are going to get any easier. This is why it is imperative we act now to protect our capacity to protect the public in future and maintain the frontline services that help them to feel safer.
“In our consultation, the majority of local respondents have indicated they support this small precept increase to shorten the gap in our funding allocation. While this rise represents a very small amount to individual householders, it will help us to build on an existing strategy that has increased and maintained PCSO resources, prioritises community and neighbourhood safety and delivers a volunteer strategy focused on attracting up to an extra 1,000 police volunteers to the Force.
“The Force continues to face considerable service pressures and increasing demands that arise out of new areas of criminality and vulnerability. This precept will not eliminate the need to make difficult decisions on where we allocate our resources, but it will give us some temporary stability to help us address future risks.”
Details of future funding allocations have not been indicated beyond 2015-16. However, in a move designed to prepare against likely funding difficulties, Sir Clive has asked the Force to prioritise specific areas of business to deliver a further £2.5m in revenue savings in 2016/17 and in future years. This is on top of the work currently underway to remodel operational policing to identify cash efficiencies.
These areas include looking at productivity across the Force, delivering savings in middle and back office functions and securing further demand management benefits.
The total budget for 2015/16 is £171.573m. However, Sir Clive is proposing to earmark £2m from budget reserves to invest in proactive work with partners to address priority issues including victims, Child Sex Exploitation (CSE), cyber-crime, mental health and key emerging risks from joint work.
Leicestershire Police has delivered more than £38m of cashable savings since 2009/10 in response to Home Office funding reductions that have arisen from the Government’s austerity measures. Its strategy to respond to the financial challenges has been noted by the HMIC in its recent inspection (PEEL) report which rated the Force as ‘good’ across all areas.
The ability of the Force to raise further revenue through the precept is limited by a 2% cap rate which if breached would automatically trigger a referendum locally which could cost more than £1m to fund. Such a position was viewed as unacceptable by the Commissioner.
Ends
Posted on Monday 9th May 2016