Cuts still hurting service despite falling crime rates

FALLING crime rates do not mean the service is coping with cuts, the Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales has warned.

Ministers who point to failing crime rates as evidence that the service is coping are basing this argument on a “false premise”, Steve White said. He was speaking after the National Audit Office issued its report into the police service’s finances earlier this month.

Crime statistics neither take account of all crime – some of which is rising – nor all the other vital work that officers do that doesn’t fall into bald crime statistics, said Mr White. This includes counter-terrorism, monitoring sex offenders, child protection, policing football matches and much more.

He said: “The report highlights a number of realities and key issues that we have been concerned about long before the cuts took hold. Most notably, it reinforces the need for government to work with organisations who know and care about policing.

“Sadly it also rightly states that ‘there are no standards for measuring demand’ and their view is that there is ‘no comprehensive national picture of demand across policing’.

“The disparity of data recording and lack of standardisation across forces does not help and we have long been calling for this to be addressed. Such inconsistencies lead to obvious questions, not least, where does it makes sense to cut costs and why?”

The police service has lost 16,659 officers since 2010. If officer losses continue at the same rate as last year, by 2016 it will be the equivalent of losing the number of officers employed by nine forces at the beginning of the period of austerity, or 18,829 officers between 2010 and 2016.

Mr White added: “Since 2010, immense pressure has been put on the police service to reduce costs quickly. Most significantly for the members we represent, it has severely impacted with the loss of almost 17,000 police colleagues and the same number of support staff.

“More funding reductions are expected and the responsibility lies firmly with the government to work with the practitioners of policing to put the structures in place so that there is a clear national picture of capacity and the demands on the service. Public safety must come first at all times.”

The Home Office has “insufficient information” on how much further it can cut police funding in England and Wales without “degrading services”, the National Audit Office’s report stated earlier this month.

It said ministers lacked information to know when a police force was at risk of being “unable to deliver services”.

The office’s report into financial sustainability of police forces in England and Wales, said that while crime had appeared to have fallen, this his was an “incomplete picture” because statistics do not capture all crime and there is limited information on “financial or service stress”.