News

Police warning over funding freeze

By Stephen Lloyd
February 17, 2012

HAMPSHIRE’S top cop has lost his fight to increase council tax in a bid to put around 100 more bobbies on the beat.

Chief Constable Alex Marshall wrote to his police authority asking it not to use a one-off government grant to freeze council tax.

Instead, he proposed a 3.25% increase, or 9p per week, per household.

But Hampshire Police Authority, which holds the force’s purse strings, reluctantly voted against Mr Marshall’s recommendation on Tuesday.

Instead a one-off government grant will be used to freeze council tax for a second year running.

It means a Hampshire resident living in an average band D property will continue to pay £146.25 for policing from April.

In his letter, Mr Marshall said it was his ambition to emerge from the current budget cuts as a ‘leaner, stronger’ organisation.

“Our success will be measured by the quality of the service we provide, continuing the reductions in crime delivered over the last four years and catching and managing more offenders,” he added.

“We are currently doing well against these measures but our ambition is to continuously improve over the next three years.”

Mr Marshall warned that if the Government’s offer of a one-off grant was accepted this year, it would mean an increase in total force savings from £45 million to £53 million.

He added the force position has been made more difficult by the ‘damping effect’ applied to police funding.

“The impact to Hampshire Police Authority is the loss of £17 million – the second worst affected authority of the 31 shire forces,” said Mr Marshall.

“We are on track to achieve our savings and had intended ‘over shooting’ to ensure we can re-invest in the highest priority areas.

“Increasing the total savings required clearly puts at risk our ability to invest in high priority areas.

“Examples of new investment are likely to include more detectives in the higher crime areas and public protection and more uniform officers where we are currently most stretched.

“We are likely to see a rise in demand for policing over the next few years. New crime types including cyber crime, electronic fraud and money laundering are developing in line with the new technologies.”

Hampshire Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said it supported the chief constable’s request.

Chairman John Apter said the police service had been under constant pressure during the past two years with the comprehensive spending review, Windsor and Hutton reforms.

“Our members have also been personally subjected to the public pay freeze and the difficulties surrounding high inflation rates,” he added.

“Our fear is that by accepting this grant a hole of some £8 million will be made in the projected savings.

“That gap cannot be sustained by the implementation of the current change programme. It is our belief that front line services would be directly cut to produce the actual savings.”

In a letter to the police authority, Mr Apter said his federation fully supported the chief constable’s request for a 3.25% precept rise.

He added: “It is an extremely unusual step for the police federation to request you fully consider the consequences and support your chief constable enabling us to continue producing the service and results our public deserve and expect.”

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