A police chief has warned his force may have to cut 400 officers and staff after the Government’s announcement of an extra £100 million for neighbourhood policing was branded a “tiny percentage” of what they needed.
Lincolnshire Police Chief Constable Paul Gibson said a £14 million funding gap for 2025/6 is still forecast after a first assessment of the final settlement set out on Friday.
The Government confirmed it will invest an extra £100 million into neighbourhood policing, adding to £100 million announced in December for England and Wales to put 13,000 more police officers on the streets by 2029.
The £200 million, which is part of the Police Funding Settlement published on Friday, is about “visible, accessible policing”, Downing Street said.
Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson said she was “not pretending” that police forces were not facing funding challenges, and decisions would need to be made locally on how many officers to have.
Mr Gibson said: “There may be some potential extra money to support the neighbourhood policing pledge. We welcome any additional funding that is allocated to policing, but unfortunately this will be a tiny percentage of what we need.
“There is a simple and stark message: without urgent and significant funding, I will need to reduce our organisation by over 400 officers and staff.”
He added he had cancelled police recruitment and would need to start reducing police staff numbers “significantly and immediately”, while also working with Home Office officials to address the situation.
Dame Diana said the Government was “starting from a difficult position” after 14 years under the Conservatives, but around £1 billion of additional funding is going to forces from April and she is meeting with struggling police forces.
“Those police forces, and I’m very well aware of Essex and Lincolnshire, those police forces that are struggling, we want to work with them. We want to make this work,” she told LBC.
Essex Police said this week it needed “urgent action” to address a budget shortfall and was looking at axing all police community support officers and reducing the number of staff.
On Friday, Essex Police said the extra £100 million would go “some way” to bridging its £5.3 million funding gap.
“We’ve lobbied hard for this funding to be increased through the consultation period. The decision we announced earlier this week has created concern and has resulted in change,” Roger Hirst, the Essex Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, said.
The new investment for more officers is scheduled for the next financial year and each police force will set out plans to use it to increase patrols by early spring.
The Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley on Thursday confirmed the country’s biggest police force will not make cuts to neighbourhood policing, despite a “stretch in the system”.
Meanwhile, Police and Crime Commissioner for Gloucestershire, Chris Nelson, said he was pleased the Government had listened to concerns in the “11th hour”, which will help with neighbourhood policing while budget remains stretched.
Reacting to the cash boost on Friday, National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) chairman Chief Constable Gavin Stephens welcomed the investment in neighbourhood policing, saying it is a “vital part of how we engage with our communities, building trust and confidence locally”.
It comes after ministers set out a provisional 3.5% real-terms increase in funding for forces with a £986.9 million boost in December.
That fell short of the £1.3 billion which chief constables said police forces would need to plug funding gaps over the next two years.
NPCC lead for finance, Chief Constable Paul Sanford, said then that the funding settlement presented “real challenges” for policing, and would “inevitably lead to cuts across forces”.
Total funding to police forces will be up to £17.5 billion next year under the final settlement, an increase of up to £1.1 billion on the previous year.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the investment in neighbourhood policing marked a “major turning point” for policing.
Ms Cooper added: “Restoring local policing will not happen overnight, but this funding boost will get more officers into our town centres and rural areas.”
Dame Diana also said more officers on the ground would help to target antisocial behaviour and “record-breaking” levels of shoplifting.
The funding will be split between every force in England and Wales and is for them to decide how to spend, Downing Street said.
The 13,000 neighbourhood officers could be newly recruited or they could be “currently serving officers being moved into neighbourhood roles”, a No 10 spokesman said.
Asked if the Prime Minister had a preference for new recruitment or shifting officers into neighbourhood roles, he said: “I think this is about visible, accessible policing and officers on the streets for people to turn to and rely on if they feel unsafe.”
The Conservatives accused Labour of having “failed to stump up the funding needed to stop massive cuts to frontline services”.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “Our police services face £118 million shortfall, which puts over 1,800 police jobs at risk.”
