Written statement on the Provisional Police Grant Report (England and Wales) 2022/23 - Dec 16

Minister of State for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse): My rt hon. Friend the Home Secretary has today published the provisional Police Grant Report (England and Wales) 2022/23. The Report sets out the Home Secretary’s determination for 2022/23 of the aggregate amount of grants that she proposes to pay under section 46(2) of the Police Act 1996. A copy of the Report will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

Today the Government is setting out the provisional police funding settlement in Parliament for the 2022/23 financial year. Overall funding for policing will rise by up to £1.1 billion compared to the 2021/22 funding settlement, bringing the total up to £16.9 billion. Within this, funding to Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) will increase by up to an additional £796 million, assuming full take-up of precept flexibility. This would represent an increase to PCC funding in cash terms of 5.8% on top of the 2021/22 police funding settlement.[1]

This Government is absolutely committed to keeping the public safe; the police have a critical role to play in this, and in reducing crime. We are determined to strengthen our police service and, by providing a three-year Spending Review settlement, we are giving the police the financial certainty and stability needed for longer-term, strategic reforms. We have confirmed total grant funding for police forces for the next three years, with increases of £550 million in 2022/23, at least £650 million in 2023/24 and no less than £800 million in 2024/25. In addition, PCCs will have up to £10 of precept flexibility in each of the next three years to use according to their local needs.

With this substantial investment, this settlement supports the police to:

1. Successfully complete the 20,000 officer Police Uplift Programme by March 2023, building on the outstanding progress to date.
2. Accelerate progress on the Government’s key policing priorities: reducing crime, ensuring the Criminal Justice System works for all, driving forward improvements in the service the public receive, and transforming critical capabilities and infrastructure.
3. Ensure an increase in productivity using enhanced technology and investigative tools. In return for this significant investment, we expect police leaders to become more efficient and effective with officers’ time, and in the fight against national threats.

Recruitment

This Government is delivering on its commitment to recruit 20,000 additional police officers, and the three-year Spending Review settlement gives the police the investment and financial certainty they need for this. We have already invested significantly in increasing the number of police officers, providing £700 million in 2020/21 and a further £425 million in 2021/22. Forces have leaned in to this commitment, and as at the end of September, over 11,000 officers have been recruited, 55% of our 20,000 target. As a result of this policing is more diverse than ever. Since April 2020, more than four in ten new recruits were female and 11.4% identified as belonging to a Black, Asian, Mixed or other minority ethnic groups. Good progress is also being made on deployments into Regional Organised Crime Units. Forces are recruiting officers to support deployments across the policing system, and we expect this growth to be seen over the Spending Review period. Forces must not be complacent in their efforts to ensure policing is open to all in modern Britain and to bring in the best talent from across their local communities.

For 2022/23, PCCs will receive an additional £550 million of government grants which include funding for the recruitment of the final 8,000 additional officers, and continued growth in police staff to support officers, by the end of March 2023. To ensure recruitment is maintained, £135 million of the grant increase will be ringfenced and allocated in line with funding formula shares. As in previous years, PCCs will be able to access this as they progress towards their recruitment target.

Building on the commitments in the Beating Crime Plan, we are continuing to strengthen capability to confront serious and organised crime, therefore, 425 officers will be deployed into Regional Organised Crime Units and equivalent capability in London. Recruitment allocations for year three of the programme are set out in the tables attached to this statement.

Precept

Spending Review 2021 confirmed that PCCs will be empowered to raise additional funding through precept flexibility. We propose to enable PCCs to increase their Band D precept by up to £10 in each of the next three years without the need to call for a local referendum, the equivalent of less than £1 per month. If all PCCs decide to maximise their flexibility, this would result in up to £246 million additional funding for local policing next year. It is for locally accountable PCCs to take decisions on local precept.

Counter-terrorism policing

The Government will continue to provide vital support for counter-terrorism (CT) policing, ensuring they have the resources they need to meet and deal with the threats we face. For the first time, CT police funding will total over £1 billion in 2022/23. This significant investment will aid in supporting the ongoing CT policing investigations to keep the country safe, and includes continued funding for both armed policing and the CT Operations Centre. The funding includes the transfer of £44 million for Special Branch from core PCC budgets to the CT policing grant, protecting local CT assets while providing forces with greater access to specialist expertise and resources to keep our citizens safe from harm.

PCCs will be notified separately of force-level funding allocations for CT policing, which will not be made public for security reasons.

National priorities

This Government will continue to support PCCs and forces through increased investment in national policing priorities. This settlement provides £1.4 billion for the following national priorities in 2022/23 (as set out at tables 1 and 5):

1. Maintaining our focus on cutting crime to make communities safer, we are continuing to invest in critical priority areas. This includes drugs and county lines activity, violent crime reduction, child sexual abuse and exploitation, fraud, and modern slavery. Next year we will see:
   
   
   • Further investment in law enforcement intelligence and investigation capacity, taking these capabilities one step closer to intercepting the rise of economic crime.
   • Regional Organised Crime Units equipped with the capabilities they need to tackle serious and organised crime and protect the most vulnerable citizens from abuse, building on the provision of more officers through the Uplift Programme.
   • A National Crime Laboratory to drive the use of innovative data science techniques to prevent and reduce crime.

1. This Government recognises that transparency, governance and accountability have a key role to play in building public confidence in the criminal justice system. This settlement will enable us to:
   
   
   • Fulfil key commitments from the Rape Review, including the expansion of Operation Soteria to additional pilot areas to test innovative ways for the police and CPS to investigate rape cases.
   • Deliver on our commitment to ensure that no victim of rape and serious sexual assault is left without a mobile phone for more than 24 hours and explore how we can further exploit technological advancements and new ways of working to improve investigation outcomes.
   • Drive improvements in local police performance, including measuring responsiveness to 101 and 999 calls and providing a peer support function through the College of Policing for poor performing forces.

1. We must ensure that there is no place left for criminals to hide that carry out serious and organised crime and rely on sophisticated digital communications to evade detection. That is why this Government will be:
   
   
   • Investing in a set of critical investigative tools to help deliver the Drugs Supply Attack Plan and support a range of other national priority threats. These tools will provide better-quality intelligence, expand law enforcement’s ability to tackle international crime networks, homicide and neighbourhood crime, and boost prosecution rates against high-harm offenders.
   • Providing greater investment in tackling fraud and improving the way in which intelligence on firearms is collected and managed.
2. This settlement also includes continued investment in Major Law Enforcement Programmes, and other critical national police and law enforcement IT capabilities. This Government will invest in:
   
   
   • Strengthening the ability to share, analyse and act on all available intelligence data to counter drugs, county lines and other high harm offences.
   • Collaborating with industry to leverage technology in support of safeguarding the vulnerable.
   • Simplifying the technological capabilities that are delivered so that they can be easily adopted and exploited by operational users.

The Government expects PCCs to continue to take responsibility for crime outcomes both locally and nationally, and we will support PCCs and forces to deliver well-evidenced crime interventions as part of their core business. The Spending Review has provided £150m of Government funding for crime reduction in each of the next three years, which will allow the continuation of existing programmes as well as some new investments to prevent crime and keep our communities safe.

We will confirm funding arrangements for specific crime reduction programmes in due course. These will follow a match-funding principle where funding for local intervention is supported via funding allocated to or raised by local leaders. This approach will maximise PCC investment in crime reduction and increase the total funding spent on crime priorities, making our communities safer.

Outcomes and efficiency

While we continue to invest in policing, it is only right that the Government holds the policing sector, as with other public services, to account on delivering for the public. The police must demonstrate to taxpayers that they are using this funding effectively, meeting the needs of their community and ensuring the public receive the highest possible quality of service.

As part of the Spending Review settlement, the Government will expect to see over £100 million of cashable efficiency savings delivered from force budgets by 2024/25. For 2022/23, we expect to see £80 million of efficiency savings - which have been reflected in the funding set out as part of the settlement.

Ensuring the value of the Government's investment in policing goes beyond efficiencies. Following greater investment in modern technology infrastructure and interoperable systems, we expect to see an increase in productivity. This will enable more efficient data sharing and analysis, reduce the risk of service disruptions, and provide a foundation for future enhancements and innovations. We will continue to work with and support the policing sector through the Efficiency in Policing Board with a renewed focus on improving the measurement and delivery of productivity gains.

This Government has once again set out its commitment to giving the police the resources they need to cut crime and keep the public safe – setting out today how up to an additional £1.1 billion will be invested in the policing system in 2022/23. We will continue to work with policing to achieve the outcomes set out here. I would like to pay tribute and express my sincere gratitude to our police officers and police staff for the extraordinary bravery and dedication they display each day, to keep us all safe from harm.

I have set out in a separate document, attached, the tables illustrating how we propose to allocate the police funding settlement between the different funding streams and between Police and Crime Commissioners for 2022/23. These documents are intended to be read together.

[1] Funding for Special Branch has been transferred from existing PCC baselines and now will go to PCCs through the CT policing grant.