My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has today laid before the House the “Police Grant Report (England and Wales) 2026-27” (HC 1638). The report sets out the Home Secretary’s determination for 2026-27 of the aggregate amounts of grants that she proposes to pay under section 46(2) of the Police Act 1996. Copies of the report are available from the Vote Office.
Today, the Government have set out the final police funding settlement for 2026-27, providing forces with the certainty and investment needed to strengthen neighbourhood policing, modernise frontline capability, and ensure policing can meet the demands of today and the future.
Overall funding for the policing system in England and Wales, including to police forces and wider system funding, will be up to £21.0 billion, an increase of up to £1.3 billion when compared to the 2025-26 funding settlement, representing a cash funding increase of 6.7% and a real-terms increase of 4.4%.
Total funding for territorial police forces and counter-terrorism policing will be up to £19.6 billion in 2026-27, an increase of £848 million compared with the 2025-26 police funding settlement. This represents a 4.5% increase in cash terms and a 2.2% increase in real terms for policing. Within this, total funding to territorial police forces will be up to £18.4 billion, an increase of £796 million compared with the 2025-26 settlement, representing a 4.5% cash increase and a 2.3% real-terms increase for police forces.
Of the overall increase in force level funding, £432 million is additional Government grant funding to police forces. This includes an additional £50 million to support the Government’s neighbourhood policing objectives above that announced at the provisional police funding settlement in December 2025.
The overall increase in territorial police funding also includes up to £364 million in additional funding for forces in England and Wales from council tax precept, compared to 2025-26. As confirmed in the provisional local government finance settlement published on 17 December 2025, police and crime commissioners in England will have the flexibility to increase the police precept by up to £15 for a band D property in 2025-26. This assumes PCCs make use of the full precept flexibility of £15 for English forces.
Funding for counter-terrorism policing will increase by at least £52 million to £1.2 billion in 2026-27. PCCs will receive separate, confidential notification of force level CT allocations, which are not published for security reasons.
The priority of the 2026-27 settlement is to boost visible policing and ensure forces can shape their workforce to meet modern crime demands. Every community deserves visible, proactive and accessible neighbourhood policing, with officers focused on the issues that matter most locally.
In 2025-26, the Government made £200 million available to kick-start delivery of 13,000 additional neighbourhood policing personnel by the end of this Parliament. As part of the neighbourhood policing guarantee, every neighbourhood now has named and contactable officers dedicated to tackling local issues, with forces increasing patrols in town centres and other hotspots in line with local demand.
We have listened to the concerns raised by policing, and it is clear that the officer maintenance grant, as currently designed, has become a barrier rather than an enabler of more visible policing. A funding mechanism that, in some cases, has encouraged a higher share of officers in back office roles is no longer fit for purpose and limits forces’ ability to build a workforce with the right mix of specialist staff and warranted officers.
The Government will therefore remove the overall officer headcount target and replace it with a neighbourhood policing target in 2026-27. Forces will retain the flexibility needed to maintain operational capacity while shaping their workforce to meet changing crime demands.
The Government remain committed to the national objective of 13,000 additional neighbourhood policing personnel by the end of the Parliament. This includes expected growth of up to 3,000 full-time equivalent by March 2026 and a further 1,750 FTE in 2026-27, bringing total neighbourhood policing growth to 4,750 FTE by March 2027.
To simplify the police funding settlement, there will be only one conditional workforce grant in 2026-27: the neighbourhood policing ringfence grant, totalling £363 million. Forces can receive this funding if, by March 2027, they increase the number of officers and PCSOs working in neighbourhood policing including those in training, in line with their locally set neighbourhood policing target.
We will make further progress to deliver the £354 million cashable savings target by 2028-29 through the police efficiency and collaboration programme. This will be achieved through focused efforts to increase policing’s ability to buy once and buy well and increase the amount of costs policing can recover for the services they provide.
The Government have published their police reform White Paper, which sets out our ambitious plans to modernise the policing system and ensure it is better structured and equipped for the future. This settlement underpins these plans with £1.4 billion of Home Office investment in the wider policing system which will:
Kick-start delivery of our programme of police reform with a £119 million investment in 2026- 27. This first-year investment will deliver new police capabilities: establishing a new national centre for AI in policing—Police.AI—which will enable the rapid and responsible adoption of AI across policing, national roll-out of live facial recognition, and investment to strengthen the use of data across policing.
Support the delivery of major law enforcement programmes which will modernise national mission-critical systems, tackling a range of threats and make our streets safer and without which policing cannot operate effectively.
Invest in tackling knife crime, through continued funding for serious violence reduction programmes in every force area, including in 20 violence reduction units, and over £28 million dedicated investment to policing through our county lines programme which has closed thousands of county lines, protected thousands of criminally exploited children and is delivering significant reductions in in knife stabbings in key force areas.
A reformed policing system will need a funding model that is fit for purpose. Changes to police governance, force mergers and the creation of the National Police Service require a new way of allocating funding between forces, aligned with these new structures. Through the police reform White Paper, we have committed to reviewing the police funding formula once police reform is under way and reconsidering the distribution of funding between local forces. The next steps of this work will be informed by the independent review into police force structures later this year.
This funding settlement reaffirms the Government’s strong support for policing and our commitment to empowering officers and staff to deliver safer communities and investing in a modern infrastructure and new technologies. By providing the resources needed to strengthen neighbourhood policing and maintain visible patrols, we are backing the frontline and enabling forces to respond effectively to local priorities. We are proud to stand alongside officers and staff in our shared mission to protect the public and make every street a safer place to live and work.
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