South Yorkshire crime tsar asks for £2.6m hand-out over EDL protests

Dr Alan Billings put in a request for Special Grant funding from the Home Office in January because of the demands placed on South Yorkshire Police by marches and protests in Rotherham, Sheffield and Doncaster in recent months. He has yet to receive a response.

The request for extra funds is one of three put in since last year for the force, which is making more than £70 million in cuts over ten years and expects its manpower to drop below 2,000 officers by 2020.

Documents seen by The Yorkshire Post suggest that the Home Office is reluctant to compensate police forces in the region for the extra resources needed at far-right protests.

Responding to a request under the Freedom of Information Act, the police and crime commissioner (PCC) for neighbouring West Yorkshire has revealed that he received no funding at all after asking for Special Grant funding over the cost of an EDL protest in Bradford in October 2013.

It took the Home Office more than 11 months to respond to the request for £758,289 in 2014, and the application was refused on the basis of the cost being less than one per cent of the force’s budget.

This prompted an angry response from PCC Mark Burns-Williamson, who in a letter to policing minister Mike Penning said he was “deeply unhappy” at the refusal.

West Yorkshire’s police authority also failed to get any money from the Home Office after submitting a request for £800,000 to pay for the cost of Operation Highfalls, which dealt with disorder in the county in August and September 2011.

In a letter of December 17, 2014, Mr Burns-Williamson said the force had policed two EDL demonstrations within a year of each other, with the total cost exceeding £1 million.

He said other police forces had been given extra funding when the cost was “significantly less” than one per cent.

He added: “There are noticeable inconsistencies in the application of the guidance which result in a process which is subjective. I am unhappy that West Yorkshire has been penalised on this basis.”

Mr Penning said in his response, sent on January 5: “I am confident that the progress West Yorkshire Police have made this year in meeting their financial challenges means the costs of policing EDL demonstrations does not present a serious financial or operational threat.”

The Home Office says it will consider requests for Special Grant funding “where necessary additional expenditure incurred would otherwise create a serious threat to the PCC’s financial stability and their capacity to deliver normal policing”.

Usually a Special Grant will only be considered once costs reach one per cent of the force budget, but ministers have discretion to waive this requirement. Humberside’s police commissioner has not submitted any requests for Special Grant funding.

Mr Burns-Williamson said in a statement that he was trying to protect front-line policing in West Yorkshire in the face of “severe Government cuts”.

He said: “That job is made more difficult, however, by having to pay vast sums to facilitate events such as an EDL demonstration which we have very little control on whether or not it goes ahead.

“£758,289 for the policing of one EDL demonstration is £758,289 that has to be found from the ever shrinking police budget and the community impact of such a damaging and disruptive demonstration and the costs incurred to our communities at a time of these cuts makes the current legislative arrangements hugely questionable.

“The Home Office does have the power to provide a grant towards the cost of such events and initially made a positive indication that we would receive money only to tell us nearly a year later that we would not.

“I was not happy with that decision and asked that it be reconsidered but our appeal was rejected.

“I have previously written to the Home Secretary to request greater local powers to be able to ban a protest in consultation with police, partners and the community and I repeat this call.”

In South Yorkshire, the number of marches by extremist groups has led to police and council bosses applying to the Government to have them outlawed.

The most expensive and high-profile operations followed the publication of the Jay report in August, which revealed South Yorkshire Police and Rotherham Council had failed at least 1,400 victims of child sexual exploitation over a 16-year-period, with many of the main offenders being men of Pakistani origin.

A protest by the EDL and other right-wing groups in the town on September 13 ran up a policing bill of more than £1m, as over 1,000 officers from across the country were sent to Rotherham.

As well as a request for extra funds relating to EDL protests, South Yorkshire also submitted a Special Grant funding bid over the cost of the Hillsborough inquests and the investigation into the case of missing Ben Needham.

So far, only £683,000 has been received towards the cost of the legal fees of eight former South Yorkshire police officers, which last month was estimated to be £14 million and rising.

In March the Home Office said it would grant £10.7 million towards the cost, though Dr Alan Billings said this would leave a shortfall of at least £6 million.

Dr Billings applied for £600,000 so South Yorkshire could set up a new team of detectives to help the Greek authorities find Ben Needham, from Sheffield, who disappeared from the island of Kos in 1991.

The Home Office has said up to £700,000 can be made available. So far only £37,500 has been received, but the force can apply to be reimbursed as new costs arise.