Provisional Police Grant Report: England and Wales 2021-22

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has today published the provisional police grant report (England and Wales) 2021-22. The report sets out the Home Secretary’s determination for 2021-22 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 are setting out the provisional police funding settlement for 2021-22. Overall funding for the policing system will total up to £15.8 billion, a £636 million increase on the 2020-21 funding settlement. Within this, available funding to police and crime commissioners (PCCs) will increase next year by up to an additional £703 million, assuming full take-up of precept flexibility. This would represent an increase to PCC funding in cash terms of 5.4% on top of the 2020-21 police funding settlement.

The additional funding for PCCs includes an increase of £415 million to Government grants for the recruitment of a further 6,000 additional officers by the end of March 2022, the second year of the police uplift programme (PUP). This increased investment for year 2 will allow PCCs and their forces to continue building on the excellent progress made so far in year 1 of the PUP, where, so far, 5,824 of the year 1 target of 6,000 officers have been recruited.

We are expanding the scope of the police uplift programme for year 2 to bolster capability in serious and organised crime units across forces and counter-terrorism policing. Strengthening policing’s presence in the organised crime units will help us meet our manifesto promise to counter the growth of serious and organised crime, including fraud, county lines, child abuse and cyber-crime. The uplift in counter-terrorism policing will ensure they have the resources needed to maintain capacity against a changing and increasingly complex threat picture. Recruitment allocations for year 2 of the programme are set out in the tables available as an attachment online.

To ensure that progress in recruitment is maintained, and to track the use of this investment efficiently, the Government will continue to ring-fence £100 million of the additional funding. PCCs will be allocated their share of ring-fenced funding in line with their funding formula allocation, and will be able to access the funding as they progress against their recruitment targets. Further information will be set out as part of the grant agreements for 2021-22. Each PCC will be awarded a local (territorial policing) officer recruitment target as in year 1, and for year 2 will also be provided a regional and organised crime unit officer target, also in line with their funding formula allocation. The ROCU uplift will be funded through PCCs using the same mechanism. As ROCU functions require more experienced officers, forces will release existing officers to ROCUs and replace them with the additional officers recruited via the PUP to ensure overall workforce growth.

Funding for the recruitment of officers in counter-terrorism policing will be paid to forces through dedicated counter-terrorism policing grants.

As set out as part of the spending review 2020, PCCs will also be able to raise further funding through precept flexibility, subject to confirmation at the final local government finance settlement. PCCs will be empowered to increase their band D precept by up to £15 in 2021-22, without the need to call a local referendum. If all PCCs decide to maximise their flexibility, this would result in up to an additional £288 million of funding for local policing next year. It is for locally accountable PCCs to take decisions on local precept.

In addition to this, PCCs will receive a portion of the £670 million of additional grant funding announced for local council tax support as part of the spending review 2020. This funding will help local authorities to continue reducing council tax bills for those least able to pay, including households financially hard hit by the pandemic. Further details on the proposed allocation methodology have been announced as part of the policy paper on covid-19 support in 2021-22.

This settlement will provide PCCs with £12.3 million funding for capital expenditure. £52.3 million capital funding will be spent on national priorities and infrastructure including police technology programmes, the College of Policing and serious organised crime programmes.

It is important that we ensure counter-terrorism policing has the resources needed to deal with the threat we face. That is why funding for CT policing will total up to £914 million in 2021-22. This continued investment in CT policing will support record high numbers of ongoing counter-terrorism policing investigations and enable the UK to respond more quickly and effectively to keep the country safe from a range of threats, wherever they take place.

In addition, CT policing will receive £32 million for a new CT operations centre. The new CT operations centre will co-locate partners from across law enforcement, the UK intelligence community and the criminal justice system to improve the way in which we respond to a range of threats, including terrorism, and some elements of hostile state activity and organised crime.

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

The Home Office will continue to invest in law enforcement through funding for national policing priorities.

This settlement of £1.1 billion in 2021-22 for national policing programmes and priorities builds on the Government’s commitment to reduce serious violence and crime and clamp down on county lines. This will allow us to “surge” the police’s response to violent crime where it is most prevalent, expand police capacity to tackle online drivers of violence and build stronger evidence on how to prevent homicides. We are continuing to invest in violence against women and girls, and the scourge of domestic abuse.

Tackling serious and organised crime and delivering our manifesto commitment to strengthen the National Crime Agency (NCA) is also a critical part of the Government’s wider crime reduction agenda. As criminal networks become increasingly adaptable and resilient, we need to ensure that the funding is available to support the police in disrupting organised criminal activity. To this end, this settlement will protect funding for the NCA to target drug trafficking, child sexual exploitation and abuse, economic crime and organised immigration crime. ROCUs, which are an essential part of this approach, will also see their officer numbers boosted as part of the PUP. This will unlock the outcomes we all want to see for the country—more of the highest harm criminal enterprises disrupted and dismantled, more disruptions and convictions of high harm organised criminals, reducing the cost of serious crime to our economy, and increasing confidence in the UK’s financial system.

The Government will continue to support the completion of national transformation policing programmes delivering enhanced national capabilities across policing. This will include: continuing delivery of the Single Online Home digital platform to forces and providing better engagement between the police and the public; completing the roll out of the National Enablers programme to ensure all forces have the enabling tools that support collaboration and agile ways of working in response to covid-19 and access to cyber-security capabilities to increase resilience; helping forces to deliver a fully accredited, more integrated and sustainable forensic service; maintaining investment in forensics, including digital forensics, to build capability across policing and for new officers; and further development of the national data analytics solution to support preventative policing interventions and the formation of the new National Crime and Justice Lab through the use of data analytics to identify perpetrators and protect the vulnerable to effectively reduce crime. We are also increasing funding for the National Police Chiefs Council to boost co-ordination of, and response to, national issues and providing strong central support so chief constables can focus on fighting crime.

I have established and chair the Strategic Change and Investment Board (SCIB), which forms part of the sub-governance of the National Policing Board. The SCIB will oversee all national law enforcement programmes; it will co-ordinate, prioritise and drive investment in and delivery of national capabilities across the policing system to ensure they support Government priorities around crime prevention and reduction. The SCIB will also oversee the investment in major technology programmes and, through the newly established Digital and Technology sub-board, it will support delivery of complex technology programmes and prioritise policing’s future investment requirements.

The Government expect the police to continue to build on the progress made on improving efficiency and productivity in return for the significant increase in investment. As such, the Government expect to see:

6,000 further officers—on top of the first tranche of 6,000 to be recruited in 2020-21—recruited by the end of March 2022. The Government will ring-fence £100 million of the funding for the uplift, which will be paid to forces in line with their progress in recruitment.

£120 million of efficiency savings from across the law enforcement sector—which are reflected in the funding set out as part of the settlement—delivered in 2021-22. We expect these to be delivered through a combination of improved procurement practices (including the delivery of £20 million of savings through BlueLight Commercial) as well as savings in areas such as estates, agile working and shared/enabling services. We expect the policing sector to work with the Home Office in setting up and supporting a new Efficiency in Policing Board. The board will improve the evidence base on efficiencies delivered to date, identify opportunities for gains over this and future SR periods, share best practice in relation to the delivery of efficiencies, and monitor and support delivery of gains.

Policing needs to ensure that high quality data is collected and utilised effectively to support local delivery, identify efficiencies and support the National Policing Board’s drive to deliver the best possible policing outcomes for the public. The Home Office and National Police Chiefs Council will bring together in one document their strategies, plans and initiatives for improving data collection and use across the sector and with key delivery partners such as criminal justice agencies.

This settlement sets out the Government’s continued commitment to supporting and investing in our police. I am extremely pleased with the progress forces have made on recruitment, and we are firmly on track to meet the first-year target. This year has once again highlighted the police’s exceptional bravery and commitment to public service. Sector leaders, frontline officers and staff have responded with speed and flexibility to the unprecedented challenges brought about by the covid-19 pandemic. Since March 2020, forces have redesigned their working practices, adapted to implement new and evolving covid-19 regulations and collaborated to ensure all personnel have had the necessary equipment and support to do their jobs safely. Officers and staff have worked tirelessly with the public to build understanding of the rules intended to control this deadly virus, all the while continuing to tackle crime and disorder in our communities. This is policing at its best, and I would like to express my immense gratitude for these continued exemplary efforts.

I have set out in a separate document, available online, the tables illustrating how we propose to allocate the police funding settlement between the different funding streams and between police and crime commissioners for 2021-22. These documents are intended to be read together.

Attachments can be viewed online at: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2020-12-17/HCWS663.

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