By David Williams
18 March 2010
The chief inspector of constabulary has warned police forces to get a grip on their spending or face substantial staff cuts in the years to come.
Denis O’Connor spoke to Public Finance as the Inspectorate of Constabulary prepared to release detailed value-for-money assessments on each of the 43 forces in England and Wales.
The March 18 figures showed wide variations in spending. Hertfordshire police spend proportionally more than three times what Durham spends on human resources staff, yet Durham’s spending on control room staff is more than double that of Essex.
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police has the second highest proportional spend on neighbourhood policing, and has three times more police community support officers on the street per resident than Hampshire and Dyfed-Powys.
The survey also found that 80% of the £13.2bn annual policing budget goes on staff costs, with officers spending only 36% of their time working in the community.
Forces will be required to find efficiency savings of £545m by 2014, while expected budget cuts are likely to add up to a further £500m.
O’Connor told PF that ‘if you don’t have a grip on all your overheads’, staff cuts will follow. He added: ‘It is going to be a real challenge to avoid significant headcount reductions. But the way to do it is look at what your costs are and see if they’re justified when you compare them with others… That isn’t happening in some places.’
O’Connor suggested that forces would have to consider stripping out layers of management, experiment with joint procurement and rethink the role of uniformed officers in desk-based investigative work.
He also underlined the role of police authorities following a March 15 joint investigation by the inspectorate and the Audit Commission. It revealed that most were failing to set priorities for their local forces and did not ensure value for money.
Of nine authorities examined on value for money, none received the top ‘excellent’ rating, with eight described as just ‘adequate’.
The Association of Chief Police Officers welcomed the assessments as a ‘useful tool’, but emphasised that policing presented different challenges and threats in each area.
‘The police service has already been highly creative in making savings without impacting on frontline services,’ said Grahame Maxwell, Acpo’s lead on finance and resources.
Christian Guy, senior policy specialist at the Centre for Social Justice, said his own research had shown that neighbourhood policing was being compromised by paperwork and targets.
‘The police are not maximising resource hours. So you can probably say we’re not getting the best out of them or the best value for money.
‘If you change the way police forces were able to police – that requires a change in tactics and management – you could achieve a lot more for the money.’
