Police must cut deeper says spending watchdog

A £500M gap has emerged between the cuts police forces are planning to make and the total amount they have to save, Whitehall’s spending watchdog warned today.

The National Audit Office (NAO) said the 43 forces across England and Wales needed to make savings of about £1.5bn, but about two-thirds of them had shortfalls in their plans to cut costs last year.

Some forces had only planned for three years instead of four, while in others “the plan simply did not yield sufficient savings”, the report said.

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Yorkshire’s forces, which are trying to overcome combined budget cuts of about £200m over four years, are increasingly looking for ways to work together to save money.

The Yorkshire Post revealed last month that the region’s four constabularies are to consider plans to merge or shrink specialist units such as firearms, underwater search and mounted officer teams.

HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) suggested last July that more than 12,000 extra crimes could be committed in Yorkshire each year, as figures showed Government cuts were hitting the region’s forces harder than constabularies in the South.

The NAO report states that the Home Office “believes that most of the savings gap has since been covered by forces’ plans” but this cannot be confirmed until a further HMIC report is published later this year.

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Home Secretary Theresa May’s department also needs to do more to increase confidence that savings are being made in the right areas, the watchdog said.

NAO head Amyas Morse said the Home Office’s financial management had improved over the last three years but “there is more work to do”.