'Government funding falls short and will force a council tax rise,' claims South Yorkshire policing chief

The settlement is the amount of funding each police force receives from the government for providing policing, community safety and victim’s services. This amounts to around three quarters, or 74 per cent, of the force budget.

The 26 per cent has to be raised through the council tax precept. In previous years the government has capped the amount that police and crime commissioners can raise the precept, which has increased slightly over previous years.

Last year, this increased to a maximum of £10 per year (based on a Band D property), but in the announcement this year the government has raised the cap to £15.

Making the announcement this week, the Government said the 2023/24 funding package will see an increase of up to £267 million on last year and means policing will receive up to £17.2 billion in total for 2023/24.

Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, said: "Our police make sacrifices every day to protect the British people, and I am steadfast in my admiration for our hardworking, brave and dedicated officers. It is vital that we continue to invest in the priorities that matter most to our communities, and we must do more to cut crime and restore confidence in our police.

“With over 15,000 additional officers already recruited and thousands more on the way, this package will support our forces to get the basics right and keep communities safe across country.”

But Dr Alan Billings, South Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner said that not only does the funding announcement ‘fall short’ but will also ‘force a council tax rise,’ adding that the Government is ‘forcing us in poorer parts of the country with a stark choice: pay more for policing or cut the service’.

He said: “The funding announcement falls short of what is needed to maintain an effective and efficient police force given the rising costs of everything – from pay to energy.

“The government have also assumed in all their calculations that PCCs will raise council tax precepts for policing by a maximum of £15 per annum for a Band D property. They are, in effect, setting the council tax for South Yorkshire and giving no real local discretion. If we were to set a lower figure, that would have serious implications for policing as the service would have to be cut back drastically.

“I am acutely aware of the struggles people are already facing because of the cost-of-living crisis – partly created by the disastrous mini-budget of the Liz Truss premiership – which the government appears unable to control. I assume the government understands the impact this crisis is having on households as well. This is why I am astonished that they will add to people’s burdens by shifting so much of the cost of funding policing next year from central government to the local tax-payer.

“They are presenting us in poorer parts of the country with a stark choice: pay more for policing or cut the service.”

Dr Billings added: “I am currently consulting the public on whether they are prepared to pay a little more for policing next year. A £15 increase per year on Band D would equate to three pence per week, though most household in South Yorkshire would pay less because most properties are in Bands A and B.

“I am also asking the public what areas of policing they are prepared to see cut if they are not willing to pay a little more.

“If I do levy the increase in precept that the government is assuming, it will still not be enough to enable us to balance the books over the coming years. I shall, therefore, be asking the force to make considerable savings, some of which will not be easy, striving all the time to maintain police staff numbers. (Police officer numbers have to be maintained so that the government can claim it has recruited an extra 20,000 across the country.)

“This is without question a poor settlement giving us little room other than to raise the precept and find more savings. How does this enable us to beat crime?”