Extra funding welcomed, but more still needed, says Fed chair

20 December 2021

West Midlands Police Federation chair Rich Cooke says the provisional police funding settlement for 2022/23 will not be enough to undo the damage of the austerity years.

Home Secretary Priti Patel has published details of the provisional settlement. Policing will receive an extra £1.1 billion next year, which represents a seven per cent increase on last year’s figures.

The money West Midlands Police receives from the Government will rise from £620.8 million in 2020/21 to £655.5m in 2021/22 and then to £694.9m in 2022/23.

But Rich said that will not be sufficient to meet the demands of modern policing.

“The Government needs to come up with a long-term funding settlement, so that forces can plan and prioritise accordingly,” he said. “Working year to year does not lead to effective policing for the communities of the West Midlands, nor the country as a whole.

“West Midlands Police lost more than 2,200 officers during the austerity years. The uplift announced by the Prime Minister in 2019 was welcome but it still won’t take the Force back to pre-austerity levels of policing. And we’re replacing experienced officers with inexperienced officers.

“Policing has changed considerably since the austerity years. Demand has escalated, with increases in traditional crime but also new and emerging crimes like cyber-crime, human trafficking, and child sexual exploitation.

“The pandemic has added to this with officers having to adapt to rapidly changing legislation, and getting criticised for being too harsh and also for being too lenient.

“Policing has picked up the pieces for other services hit by cuts during the austerity years, such as the ambulance service, mental health services and the voluntary sector.

“It’s not just numbers though. Police stations and offices have closed. The infrastructure has been decimated so, in fact, forces have nowhere to put the new influx of officers, nowhere for them to store their kit, no canteens and so on.

“They’ve also put huge pressure on police officers who volunteer as tutors. Some tutors, with some being fresh out of training themselves, are mentoring three to six students and this leaves them all, and the public, vulnerable.

“It seems the Government has budgeted solely for the new officers but not the intricate infrastructure needed for them to be effective which was sadly dismantled as forces tried to cope in the austerity years.

“What was dismantled in a couple of pen strokes as part of the budget cuts cannot be rebuilt by simply trying to re-employ what was discarded. The Government has to consider this but also needs to urgently address the issue of police officer pay. The pay freeze has had a massive impact on officers who have been right in the frontline of the response to the pandemic. We need a motivated, properly training and equipped workforce.

Rich has called on the Police and Crime Commissioner and the Chief Constable to ensure that every penny of extra funding is directed towards supporting policing local communities with police officers on the ground not staff in offices

He added: “We also have to ensure we are structured in a way which deploys resources as efficiently as possible, I’m not convinced the current operating model achieves that.

Ms Patel said that the additional £1.1bn will help support the delivery of the Beating Crime Plan, which set out the Government’s mission to deliver fewer victims, safer neighbourhoods, and a more secure country.

In particular, the plan focuses on driving down homicide, serious violence and neighbourhood crime – to ensure that everyone can benefit from the security that a safe home, street and country provides.

She said: “Crimes including theft, burglary and knife crime are down, we’ve got an additional 11,053 police officers on our streets, and we’ve shut down 1,500 drugs lines which exploit the young and the vulnerable.

“But we must go further and faster to make our communities even safer, so today I am giving our excellent police forces and law enforcement agencies more funding to do just that, in line with our Beating Crime Plan.

“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.”