South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Alan Billings says police grant settlement will 'leave us short'

The Home Office today announced its provisional police funding settlement for 2022/23, with up to an extra £796 million – a 5.8 per cent increase - being made available for police and crime commissioners across England and Wales to spend.

South Yorkshire would get an extra £17.2m under the deal, taking its annual funding to £314.3m, but only if it asks council tax payers in a typical band D property to pay an extra £10 next year – the maximum permitted – at a time when the cost of living is already rising rapidly, putting huge pressure on household spending.

The Government is increasing its total grants for crime commissioners by £550m but the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, says commissioners can raise up to £246m extra in total through the council tax precept.

South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Alan Billings claims the deal being offered is not good enough and it is unfair to shift the burden onto hard-pressed local taxpayers.

He says South Yorkshire gets around 75 per cent of its police funding from the Government grant, with only about a quarter raised through council tax.

“While I welcome the Government’s commitment to increase funding to pay for more officers, the grant for South Yorkshire will, in the medium term, leave us short of what we need to pay for them as well as to continue with normal business and meet the costs of inflation – which is starting to go up quite steeply.

“Whilst the Government has committed to uplifting the number of police officers, it has not committed to providing the total necessary level of funding and these costs will have to be met locally from council tax.

“The Government assumes that all PCCs will meet any gaps in funding by raising council tax by £10 on a Band D property.

“But the ability of people to pay varies across the country and in South Yorkshire we have many families who are struggling financially.

“One thing I am clear about is that we must have a police force that has the capability and capacity to get on top of crime and anti-social behaviour and that mean it must be adequately funded.

“Over the next few weeks I will be working with the Chief Constable to see where savings can be made and I will be consulting with people on how much they are willing to pay for the police service.”

The Home Office says the extra money will enable crime commissioners to recruit the extra 9,000 officers it says are needed to reach the 20,000 recruitment target by the end of March 2023.

In total, Ms Patel said police funding would be boosted by up to £1.1bn or seven per cent next year, including extra money for technology upgrades and counter-terrorism policing.

She said crimes including theft, burglary and knife offences had fallen nationally but the Government ‘must go further and faster to make our communities even safer’.

“Reducing crime is a top priority for this government and I will continue working with police leaders to ensure this unprecedented investment results in less crime and fewer victims,” she added.