15 February 2008
Police authorities have given only a partial welcome to the funding reforms proposed by a senior police officer.
In Sir Ronnie Flanagan's long-awaited final report, the chief police inspector said the floors and ceilings built into the system to damp the effects of formula changes should be phased out and the funding distributed according to a needs-based formula.
'The allocation of grant funding to police authorities should be based transparently on objective need, to better match resources to threat and demand,' the February 7 report stated.
The Association of Police Authorities said it would welcome a move to formula funding but added that there was a need to retain floors to stop some forces facing large budget cuts.
APA chair Bob Jones told Public Finance that other police authorities should not be expected to foot the bill for these damping measures.
Speaking of his home authority, the West Midlands, Jones said: 'They need to be spending another £50m on top of what they are, that is the perceived need for that area, and it's inappropriate that they're falling short.
'It's perfectly appropriate to cushion the forces that have often lost money through issues like population drift, they still have a basic level of police need, but it's inappropriate that it's taken away from those whose need has increased substantially.'
Lancashire Police Authority chief executive Miranda Carruthers-Watt agreed that police authorities would welcome greater clarity on funding mechanisms, but she criticised the Flanagan report for not considering police funding in the context of its relationship with other public services.
'In terms of crime and disorder, where district councils are the police's main partners, the fact that a lot of their previous allocations in terms of area grant have been passported to top-tier authorities means that some of those crime and disorder reduction partnerships are needing to think very carefully about where they get their funding from,' she told PF.
Flanagan also called for temporary relief from capping for forces that are planning voluntary mergers to boost their operational resilience.
Lancashire police's plans to merge with neighbouring Cumbria collapsed in 2006 when ministers refused to approve the requisite council tax increases.
But Carruthers-Watt said Lancashire was unlikely to resurrect its merger plans, adding that Flanagan's recommendation lacked 'sufficient teeth' to allow force mergers to become a major feature of the police reform agenda.
PFfeb2008
