Council tax rise approved in bid to help cash-strapped South Yorkshire Police

A 3.3 per cent increase to South Yorkshire Police's share of council tax was approved today as the force attempts to plug a £10.5 million funding black hole.
Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire Alan Billings.Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire Alan Billings.
Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire Alan Billings.

The extra money raised from tax-payers, equivalent to £5 a year for owners of a Band D property, will raise £1.6 million in revenue and was given the green light by members of the police and crime panel.

Despite this, recent projections show that some 55 police officers and 214 support staff roles will be cut from the force by April 2017.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Police and crime commissioner Dr Alan Billings said the police panel “recognised that we have little choice if policing, especially neighbourhood policing is to be maintained effectively”.

Dr Billings said yesterday: “Even with the increase, savings of £10.5m will still have to be made as this involves some loss of posts. We hope this can be managed without the need for redundancies.

“The panel understood that if we had not increased the precept – as the Government clearly wanted – the Home Secretary would not look favourably on any requests for financial help with such matters as the child sexual exploitation enquiries and the Hillsborough inquest costs.

“The budget we will now move to finalise, also means that we will maintain police community support officers at 225 for the next financial year with no redundancies.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

South Yorkshire Police has already cut around 900 jobs since 2010 to save more than £50m from its budget.

It was hoped a surprise announcement by Chancellor George Osborne in his Autumn Statement that police funding would be frozen rather than cut further would put the force in a stronger financial position.

But it has since emerged that forces would be forced to increase their precepts by 1.99 per cent, the maximum allowed without a referendum, to match their funding from last year and there would be no provision to cover inflation costs such as salary increases and extra demands on services.

South Yorkshire is one of the few forces allowed to increase its precept by more than 1.99 per cent because it has historically kept council tax levels low.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The force is paying out millions to cover the legal costs of its former officers represented at the Hillsborough inquests and Operation Stovewood, the investigation run by the National Crime Agency into the Rotherham sex abuse scandal, though it is hoping to recover the majority of these costs through Government grants.