The Government has announced a substantial £450 million increase in police funding across England and Wales as part of a comprehensive settlement for forces and counter terrorism policing.
In Thames Valley, which covers Milton Keynes, the increase in funding is set to be £12.7 million.
To help meet the needs of each area, government is protecting its grant to forces in cash terms and empowering locally elected police and crime commissioners (PCC) to raise precept contributions by up to £1 a month for a typical household.
Counter terrorism police funding will also increase by around £50 million to £757 million, a rise of 7%. This is in recognition of the changing threat from terrorism and to ensure counter terrorism policing has the resources needed to respond and keep the public safe.
At a national level, £130 million extra will be provided for priorities such as special grants to help forces meet unexpected costs, for example, the £9.8 million given to Greater Manchester Police after the Manchester Arena attack, and national technology programmes designed to deliver greater productivity and mobile working.
Milton Keynes North MP Mark Lancaster said:
“This is a very welcome settlement for Thames Valley and Milton Keynes that will ensure our local force has what it needs to keep us safe.
“Thanks to lobbying by myself, Iain Stewart, PCCs, and other colleagues the Government has recognised the demands on policing is changing with more victims of serious, hidden crimes such as domestic abuse, modern slavery and child sexual exploitation coming forward.
“I will continue to work the local PCC and Police Officers to ensure they have the funding and resources they need to keep residents across Milton Keynes safe.”
Police forces will also be able to access a £175 million police transformation fund. Led by the police themselves, the fund gives individual forces money to invest in reform and digitisation projects to benefit the whole policing system.
The Home Office, working with the police, has also identified around £100 million of potential savings to be made through smarter procurement of everything from cars to uniforms.
If all forces delivered the level of productivity from mobile working as the best forces, the average officer could spend an hour a day extra on the frontline - this has the potential to free up the equivalent of 11,000 extra officers across England and Wales.
To help forces plan their finances more effectively for the future and in response to the view of PCCs and Chief Constables, the Home Office has signalled its intention to repeat the same settlement for 2019 to 2020 provided there is substantial progress from policing in delivering productivity and efficiency improvements.
