Government Needs To Increase Police Budgets

THERE needs to be “continued investment in policing” in the Government’s forthcoming Spending Review, South Yorkshire Police Federation has said.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak will announce the Comprehensive Spending Review on 27 October, setting out the Government’s plan for public spending over the next three years.

South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent said that the Review must include increasing police budgets, as “officers have never been under so much strain as they are now”.

Steve said: “We need to have continued investment in policing. It’s no good just relying on – which the Government frequently does – saying that they’re recruiting 20,000 police officers. That is welcome, of course, but all that is really doing is repairing the damage that has already been done. We need to grow.

“We hear all the time about budgets being cut in policing, not just in terms of pay but police budgets as well. We can’t keep doing that. Our officers have never been under so much strain as they are now.

“Yes, the numbers will help once they are bedded in, but they won’t repair it completely. With the dynamics of crime changing, in terms of technology and in terms of the hoops we need to jump through bureaucratically to deal with offenders, we need to have increased budgets in policing.”