MONEY promised by the Government to pay for policing next year won\u2019t provide an instant fix, Essex Police Federation has warned.<\/p>\n
The Home Office\u2019s provisional police funding settlement has found an extra \u00a3970m for police coffers for 2019\/20 and the figure includes \u00a3153m towards the police pension deficit.<\/p>\n
PCCs will receive \u00a37.8bn in general Government grants and will have the option to ask households to contribute an extra \u00a32 per month, up to a threshold of \u00a324 per month for a Band D property.<\/p>\n
That will place an expectation on the force to deliver quickly in Council Tax payers\u2019 eyes, said Essex Police Federation Chairman Steve Taylor.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an expectation, but it\u2019s an expectation that council tax payers here in Essex have already experienced because we had growth from the last council tax increase where the PCC put it up a couple of pounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cMembers of the public have already experienced that it takes time for that money to translate into extra officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if that\u2019s what members of our community are more concerned about, the fact that they\u2019re not seeing it quick enough, I\u2019d rather be dealing with that than we\u2019re not getting any relief coming at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
The money promised by the Government equates to an additional \u00a323m for Essex policing and will help with the \u2018green shoots of recovery\u2019 in the force, Steve said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt enables us to continue to see the green shoots of reinvestment after such a lean period and we have guarantees that it will transfer into more officers.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, we welcome it. Where the money comes from to my mind is a secondary concern. When things are so tight on the frontline, the fact that we are getting extra money, it might not be from the ideal source, but it\u2019s welcome and it offers relief to our members here in Essex.\u201d
\nCritics have said that placing the emphasis on local funding is another sign the Government is \u2018passing the buck\u2019 on policing, but Steve thinks it could hand some power back to regional authorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a national point of view, I completely appreciate that it is passing the buck to the local tax payer. Of course, it is, that\u2019s what Police and Crime and Fire Commissioners, as we have in Essex, are all about.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s also insulating the centre from the local. Only now that we\u2019re seeing the changes to the police cap, the centre is saying you can pay for it locally and they\u2019re giving local politicians the ability to pay things locally.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, in a perverse way it\u2019s giving more accountability to the local politicians. If they get that wrong, then we\u2019ll take it up with them locally.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can have views on whether or not that\u2019s the right thing to do and I want to see a fairer police funding formula from the centre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MONEY promised by the Government to pay for policing next year won\u2019t provide an instant fix, Essex Police Federation has warned. The Home Office\u2019s provisional police funding settlement has found\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4939"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4940,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4939\/revisions\/4940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}