Impact on our area… As a result of the funding formula damping, Avon & Somerset has lost £110 million in needs-assessed funding from 2006/07 2013/14. This funding has effectively been redistributed to other PCCs/Forces such as Cumbria, Northumbria and West Mercia. The police funding formula was effectively abandoned in 2014/15 and 2015/16 pending its (delayed) review, so damping data is not available for these years, but past unfairness has effectively been locked-in.
Funding –the history… The last police funding formula was implemented from 2006/07. It sought to allocate police grant on the basis of need derived from key indicators including population, deprivation and crime stats. However to smooth the introduction of the formula, police grant formula damping (“damping”) was applied as a transitional mechanism designed to ensure individual forces did not face huge reductions in their grant funding as a result of the changes. In practice however, damping has persisted ever since and has not been a transitional tool at all. In recent years it has been used to ensure that the same percentage reduction in funding is applied to all PCCs/Forces in a simplistic but flawed nod to “fairness.” The prolonged application of damping to equate percentage cuts in funding across Forces has resulted in very different variations from need being established (see chart pg3). This has proved to be unfair and unreasonable on the local residents of Avon and Somerset as one of the worst affected areas.
As we face hard financial choices about how to prioritise reducing and finite resources, Avon & Somerset is forced to look harder and cut deeper than others who have fared better from the damping adjustments. This has a consequential adverse impact on police numbers with Avon & Somerset having 1.79 officers per 1000 population compared to the average of 1.94 officers per 1000 population. This means that we have 240 fewer officers than average for the size of population (over 1.6 million people) despite the complex needs and demands from a major city like Bristol. The loss of funding against the levels we are assessed to need at Avon and Somerset has been exacerbated by ongoing increases in population and complexity of need over recent years. Bristol and surrounding districts have significant areas of deprivation, complex safeguarding issues and localised high impact from immigrant communities, as well as a high concentration of domestic extremism. As a result of these demographic issues and the failure of the current police funding model, the funding we receive has diverged significantly from the levels we would actually be assessed to need.
Why it’s not been addressed?
The future
Policing bodies which have received additional funding through damping, above their formuladetermined allocation, remain understandably reluctant to give up this windfall of ‘additional income’ and claim to be financially unviable without the additional funds.
We recognise that police, along with other unprotected areas of public spending, must share in the funding reductions required to reduce the government’s budget deficit.
Local and regional politics has also been a blockage to tackling this issue. However, PCCs such as Avon & Somerset and West Midlands have delivered services in the face of significant lost funds for many years.
Health related demand Substantial demand is placed on the police service by people with mental health related issues as vulnerable victims and as offenders, exacerbated by the failure of the NHS and others to safeguard these vulnerable and sometimes dangerous people. As ‘health spending’ is “protected” we would ask for consideration that a proportion of police funding be also protected to reflect the high levels of demand on policing that results from health related threat, risk and harm.
However, the failure to implement the last police funding formula and the prolonged application of damping has resulted in material, unexpected differences and “skew” between PCCs, thus storing up pressure in the police funding system for the review now planned. It’s essential that the elected PCCs have confidence in the police funding distribution mechanism as a true and fair representation of the relative need in their area when making difficult decisions on spending cuts and council tax precept.
Reviewing the funding We consider the following to be important aspects of the forthcoming review of police funding:
Council tax precept We would also encourage a look at council tax precept levels and the associated referendum levels for all PCCs in conjunction with the police formula review. At the moment, council tax payers in an average Band D home across England & Wales pay unacceptably different amounts for their local police precept, ranging between £88 and £235. (We sit in the middle of the range of PCCs police precepts at £175 for a Band D home).
This extraordinary range of local taxes is paying for, what local residents would see, as the same service. We think discretion should be given to PCCs in Force Areas below the top quartile levels of council tax precept (ie: some 30 PCCs setting a precept below £200 for a band D) to increase their precept at higher rates of increase in the next four-years without triggering a referendum, in order to balance out the police precept levels across the country. Those in the top quartile could be frozen.
For the review to be conducted now Consideration be given to the drivers for police demand – including the forthcoming updated index of multiple deprivation (expected later in 2015) which has 7 domains including health (which is important indicator for safeguarding risks) Consideration of crime trends. We would encourage reference to trends from the self-reported experience of crime set out in the crime survey of England & Wales. [Police recorded crime is limited by variations in levels of reporting and how police interpret and implement the crime recording rules differently] Include independent expertise in the review process Ensure the review is open & transparent, not behind closed doors Ensure consultation with all stakeholders including on draft findings Ensure implementation in full. The last police formula was not fully implemented Ensure the police settlement is sufficiently dynamic to respond to changes in need, including: population, deprivation, actual levels of crime, demand complexity and safeguarding risks
Tables and References Table of cumulative impact of damping over eight years since 2006/07 until 2013/14 (each bar represents a Police Force with Avon & Somerset in red). The police funding formula was effectively “abandoned” in 2014/15 so damping data not available as all Forces were informed of a flat % cut in funding without reference to the formula thus, locking-in past damping
Table of 2013/14 damping by Local Policing Body
Damping 13/14 (£)
West Midlands Avon and Somerset Nottinghamshire Hampshire Greater Manchester Greater London Authority West Yorkshire Leicestershire Cambridgshire Thames Valley Humberside Bedfordshire Hertfordshire Northamptonshire Satffordshire Derbyshire Dorset South Yorkshire Lincolnshire Norfolk
(43,755,289) (10,711,010) (10,477,328) (10,088,267) (6,921,089) (6,752,890) (5,416,798) (4,796,405) (4,495,316) (4,258,419) (3,693,512) (3,028,976) (2,953,793) (2,511,967) (2,366,873) (2,145,554) (1,938,371) (1,807,926) (237,331) 29,685
Table of 2013/14 damping by Local Policing Body Essex Warwickshire Suffolk Celveland Sussex Gloucestershire Wiltshire Devon & Cornwall Kent Durham Surrey Lancashire Merseyside North Yorkshire City of London Cheshire West Mercia Cumbria Northumbria
Damping 13/14 (£)
91,308 1,075,715 1,134,057 1,341,929 1,402,612 1,862,431 2,613,964 3,605,644 5,822,489 6,074,960 6,257,140 7,700,476 8,833,009 9,415,888 10,838,105 11,174,685 11,289,920 16,146,262 21,646,837
Ref: National Audit Office report “formula Funding for Public Bodies 2011 which highlighted the unfairness of damping and the “polarised outcomes” created) Ref: House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee report in 2012 which criticised the lack of fairness, lack of transparency and complexity in the funding allocations)