MPs warn Ministers over money risk of crime czars

MINISTERS should acknowledge the risks involved in bringing in police and crime commissioners when forces nationwide will be under pressure policing the Olympics, MPs warned yesterday.

With 20 per cent cuts to the police budget being front-loaded over the next two years, the commissioners will be dealing with budgetary decisions they have inherited rather than made and the Home Office should set out how the transition should be managed, the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee said.

The concerns came as controversial Hull councillor Colin Inglis announced he would stand for the commissioner’s post at Humberside Police – and said he already had misgivings over current force spending plans.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The greatest changes will be needed at the same time as the first elections for police and crime commissioners are taking place in May next year, only two months before the Olympic Games start, the MPs said, and urged the Home Office to acknowledge that there are “risks involved in this transition”.

Police forces will also have to “rethink and reduce the range of services that they provide and the way in which they provide those services” as a result of the cuts, the committee claimed.

It also called for the Home Office to explain what it means when it asks forces to “prioritise the front line”.

In its report on police finances, the committee found the budget cuts over the next four years would lead to “significantly fewer police officers, police community support officers and police staff”.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“Police forces need a funding system that offers long-term predictability in order to be able to plan more effectively, especially at a time of reduced income,” it said.

The committee’s chairman, Keith Vaz, said: “There is no doubt that the Government is requiring significant savings from the police and whilst the link between police officer numbers and levels of crime is complex, in the police service the largest proportion of budgets by far is spent on the workforce.

“In order to make these savings, police forces will have to rethink and reduce the range of services that they provide and the way in which they provide those services.

“Taken with the election of police and crime commissioners and the restructuring of the policing landscape, this represents a fundamental change to the nature of policing.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Coun Inglis, a former Humberside Police Authority chairman, said he was troubled by the authority’s plans to borrow £43m over the next two years to spend on buildings, including a new headquarters.

He said: “The reason I am saying something now is what they are doing about tying the hands of future crime commissioners in agreeing their budgets. They will sign contracts that will tie your hands for the next two years.”