Come clean on further cuts to policing, Commissioner tells Home Secretary

Greater Manchester’s Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd

Greater Manchester could face a huge additional cut to its police service because of the changes to the way government allocates funding.

Little information has been given out by the Home Office about the changes to the police funding formula, but – based on the scant information available – Greater Manchester could be facing an additional cut to its police service of between £53 and £75m.

That is the equivalent of between 1,060 and 1,560 officers.

However, it is almost impossible to tell what the implications are for Greater Manchester because the government has refused to give the public the necessary information about what the changes will mean.

Greater Manchester’s Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Lloyd is now demanding that the Home Office comes clean and says what these changes will mean for Greater Manchester.

Mr Lloyd said: “We’ve already had more than £175m slashed from our policing budget, which means we’ve lost more than 1,500 police officers. We know there are more cuts to come of at least £100m, but these new cuts are on top of all of this.

“By keeping the details of this change to the funding formula secret, you have to wonder what the Home Secretary has got to hide. It’s time for her and the government to come clean.

“As things stand, we simply can’t make plans for the future which creates additional uncertainty for the people of Greater Manchester. It’s unacceptable.”

Mr Lloyd and the Chief Constable, Sir Peter Fahy, have written to the Home Secretary to ask for urgent clarification.

The Home Office is currently consulting on the planned changes to the funding formula. Despite asking the public to give their views on the proposed changes, the lengthy document finds no room to give any examples of what the proposed changes may mean for any particular area.

The consultation proposes a change from the historic funding formula from one which reflects relative need to a system based on population levels, the underlying characteristics of the local population and the environmental characteristics of the area. It is highly likely that Greater Manchester will suffer cuts as a result, but Home Office officials have refused to give any examples of what the changes will mean in practice – and have said they won’t give these details till October, one month after the consultation period ends.

The police service in the UK is funded through a combination of government grant and money raised locally through council tax. Due to economic deprivation and other factors, areas like Greater Manchester rely more heavily on the central government grant, so any changes to the formula will disproportionally affect our region.