Efficiency savings ‘will not harm policing’

16 Jul 09
Home Secretary Alan Johnson has denied that cuts in funding will affect frontline policing.
By Alex Klaushofer

16 July 2009

Home Secretary Alan Johnson has denied that cuts in funding will affect frontline policing.

The denial follows claims from the Association of Police Authorities earlier this month that forces will have to make £480m of cuts to meet new levels of efficiency savings – raised from 3% to 4% in the Budget. The new targets have prompted some chief constables to warn that cuts to frontline services might follow.

Johnson, who took over at the Home Office in June following Jacqui Smith’s resignation, told MPs at the home affairs select committee that the efficiency savings would be ploughed back into existing budgets, which were already set for 2009/10 and 2010/11.

‘I don’t think that’s an issue at all,’ he said. But he suggested that eventual spending cuts were likely to affect policing. ‘The concerns are about what happens after the Spending Review,’ he said. ‘No one’s pretending that there’s going to be the same abundance of money that’s come over the last 12 years.

‘There’s a debate there in all public services. This must not hit frontline police – that would be a hugely retrograde step, particularly given they only have one target now, which is public confidence,’ he added.

Asked whether the benefits of the government’s controversial identity card scheme would justify the costs at a time of tighter public spending, Johnson said that the department would recoup the costs – an estimated £6bn over 30 years – through the fees charged to the public.

‘We get all of that back, because the cost of passports and the cost of ID cards will ensure that money comes back through the revenue,’ he said. ‘The only way you lose it is if you stop it before you could actually get the money back,’ he said.

The Conservatives have pledged to cancel the ID card scheme should they come to power in 2010, and have warned contractors of get-out clauses in contracts. In March, then home secretary Smith admitted that cancelling two of the projects would cost £40m.

Johnson said he did not have a break-even figure for the scheme, as previous costings were based on figures prior to the signing of contracts. ‘We’ve now signed those contracts and I think we’re in a different situation,’ he said.

But the publication of the next costings for the scheme should be brought forward to November, he added.

‘I think that will give you a break-even figure.’

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