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Police still suffering damage from UK government cuts amid funding crisis
Leader of Britain’s police chiefs says policing has yet to recover from austerity
www.theguardian.com
Leader of Britain’s police chiefs says policing has yet to recover from austerity
Gavin Stephens, the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said police were cutting crime, but faced severe funding pressures and were facing a £3.2bn cash shortfall.
The Conservative-led government slashed police budgets from 2010, leading to a reduction of 20,000 officers. It then reversed course after a 2019 manifesto commitment and recruited the same number lost, under a programme known as the police uplift.
“[There’s been] a £1bn increase in borrowing, because we don’t get any capital grant to invest in our infrastructure, a £1bn reduction in reserves and £1.2bn still to make in savings. Those savings are predominantly going to come from police staff colleagues. So a £3.2bn cash deficit. That’s what would get us a stable service today.”
But this is madness
Unlike police officers, police staff – which include police community support officers, forensic experts and administrative workers among others – can be made redundant and have borne the brunt of the squeeze.
Stephens said the equivalent of 6,000 of the new 20,000 officers were doing roles usually or better performed by police staff, and thus not on the streets
He said: “We’re not getting the full effect of uplift. Effectively, the pain of the budgetary pressures are felt by police staff. So hence the fact that we’ve got 4,000 staff vacancies and we’ve got 6,000 police officers that are in roles that should be done by police staff.”
