Avon and Somerset Police Federation Warns of ‘Difficult Decisions’ Without Fair Funding in Government Spending Review

10 June 2025

If the police do not receive fair funding in tomorrow’s Government spending review, “there will be some really difficult decisions and I fear for the consequences”, Avon and Somerset Police Federation has said.

Chair Tom Gent was speaking ahead of an announcement by Chancellor Rachel Reeves about the Government’s spending priorities. The Chancellor will set out on Wednesday how much money each Government department will get to spend for the next three to four years.

Tom said he fears that if the police do not get a fair slice of the pie, “chief officers will have some very difficult decisions about what they can prioritise” and they will struggle to keep communities safe.

He said: “They won’t be able to do everything. The things that they want to do, like halving violence against women and girls, tackling antisocial behaviour, and tackling shoplifting, are going to be extremely difficult to achieve without a fair funding settlement.

“All of those things need police officers. If you’ve got a shoplifter in your shop, you need a police officer to turn up. If you’re a victim of domestic violence, you need a police officer to turn up. We need to ensure there is fair funding so that we can really focus on keeping our communities safe.”

Tom questioned where any cuts could be made from: “Do you cut from your sexual offences investigations team? Do you cut from your community officers, who are engaged in the community and tackling shoplifting? Do you cut from the public protection teams? Do you cut from the public order teams? There would be some really difficult decisions and I would fear for the consequences.”

He added: “Some of our systems and processes need modernisation and we welcome that, but we still need officers on the street. So much of policing is about having officers on the streets, and IT systems can’t do that, so we need to ensure officers are supported. Not just in numbers, but in technology, in their welfare. If officers aren’t supported, they leave. The cost of officers leaving would outweigh the cost of supporting them.”

Tom’s comments were echoed by Nick Smart, President of the Police Superintendents’ Association, and Acting PFEW Chair Tiff Lynch, who wrote a joint article in The Telegraph at the weekend in which they said the service is in crisis.

They wrote: “When a young Constable looks down at their payslip and wonders how they’ll make rent this month, something is deeply wrong. When experienced detectives walk away from decades of service, broken by the demands placed on them, it’s the police service itself that’s broken.”