Police authorities lobby MPs over 'funding shortfall'

Police authorities across England and Wales are on the campaign trail following concerns that a projected £350 million funding shortfall will seriously impact on services.

Representatives of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) and the Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, Sir Ian Blair, joined with other police authorities in Westminster yesterday to voice their concerns.

Funding existing services, and meeting these added pressures, means that police authorities need at least a 5.5% increase from the Home Office, they said. However, authorities believe that funding may only increase by 3% for 2005/06 – and a cap on council tax rises to low single figures would leave a £350 million shortfall.

In private meetings taking place in parliament, over 100 MPs were told how pressure on budgets will combine next year with an edict from Whitehall to keep council tax levels to a minimum, causing a squeeze in funding that will threaten frontline police services.

Len Duvall, MPA chairman, said: "Central funding has fallen short of what we needed in previous years, but we have been able to make up the difference from local council tax.

"We can't continue to do this, because the public are getting fed up of rising council tax, and the government are threatening to cap increases. This means that without at least 5.5% funding from the government, cuts in police services may have to be made."

MPA members also met with London MPs to set out how the funding crises could hit police services across the capital.

All police authorities will have to find extra cash to meet new statutory and policy responsibilities; implement the government's police reform agenda; for pay inflation; forensic, IT and technological developments; and to fund a 12% rise in the cost of pensions as a result of mass officer recruitment in the 1970s.

(gmcg)