Police forces face cash crisis, Tories claim

Police forces across Britain are facing funding shortfalls running into millions of pounds, the Tories have claimed today.

The Conservative claims state that:

• Kent police are facing a £19 million deficit
• Thames Valley has to make savings to avoid a deficit
• Surrey police have reported difficulties in overcoming a funding shortfall
• Greater Manchester Police are particularly concerned about financing the pensions of large numbers of officers approaching retirement
• Metropolitan Police Authority has to find savings of £60 million
• feedback from police authorities indicated that Suffolk is £6 million short, and Norfolk £7.8 million underfunded, and Derbyshire is also short of cash

Shadow Tory Home Secretary David Davis said that taxpayers are now faced with a "double whammy" of paying for cash-strapped police through council tax and having to foot the bill for reported shortfalls.

"Police authorities increasingly find their hands tied behind their backs by Labour's centralising approach to policing," he said.

"Police forces have every right to feel aggrieved at the lack of local control as they are held to ransom by a government that tells them how to spend their money and forces them to spend time on form filling and gimmicks and not on meeting local priorities and needs."

However, Home Secretary David Blunkett said today that details of the grant settlement were still being completed. Police funding was a top priority for the government and were now at record levels, he said.

Total provision for 2004/05 in England & Wales is £10 billion, an increase of 4.2%. Since 2000/01, total provision for policing has increased by over £2.3 billion - more than 30%.

Mr Blunkett said: "The government is working with the police service to cut bureaucracy and free up police officers so they can focus on frontline duties and cutting crime. In addition, police numbers in England and Wales are at an all time high of 139,631 - an increase of 12,473 since 1997 compared to a fall of 1,100 in the previous four years - complemented by a growing team of 3,555 community support officers."

The Lib Dems have also voiced scepticism of the Tory claims, saying the party's own figures down add up.

Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary, Mark Oaten, said: "The Tories have no properly costed solutions to local government funding problems. They can’t even fund their wild claims to increase police numbers by 40,000 without putting asylum seekers on a fictional desert island."

(gmcg)