All Police Forces in Wales have received a cash and real terms increase – up 4.9% in Gwent, 5% in South Wales, 5.3% in North Wales and 6.1% in Dyfed Powys.
With the Home Office continuing to overlay its needs- based formula with a floor mechanism, all Police Forces in Wales and England can expect to receive the same 2.1% increase in Revenue Support.
The three way Police funding settlement in Wales, involving the Home Office, Welsh Government and Police Precept within Council Tax, will therefore result in £357.3 million total revenue support for Welsh Police Forces in 2019-20, including £213 million Home Office Funding.
The Council Tax Police Precept is increasing:
– by 6.99% in Gwent, or 32 pence per week for the average household, which will help fund 40 new officers.
- by 7% in North Wales, or 38 pence per week for the average household, which will enable recruitment of 34 additional officers and 6 staff
- by 10.3% in South Wales, with promised investment in front line policing
- and by 10.7% in Dyfed Powys
The increases in South Wales and Dyfed Powys mean a 46 pence per week rise for the average household.
With the South Wales Police Federation stating in 2016 that the Council Tax Precept Gap with the other Welsh Forces had now been closed, we must ask why their increase this year is noticeably higher than Gwent and North Wales.
When Dyfed Powys previously imposed the highest increases in Wales, it blamed the preceding funding freeze there, although the outgoing Welsh Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner stated that he had “delivered more officers on our rural beats for more time, for less money”.
The UK Government has, since 2015, raised its contribution to overall police funding in line with inflation, including specific areas such as cybercrime, counter-terrorism and tackling child sexual exploitation.
Prior to then, it also had to contend with £545m worth of cuts to the police inherited from Labour’s final budget in 2010, to be made by 2014.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales provides the best overview of long-term changes – with the latest estimates showing no significant change in theft offences and computer misuse crime down 33%
For crime types thought to be well-reported and accurately recorded, police recorded crime data can help identify short-term changes – and the latest figures show a mixed picture – e.g an increase in robbery offences alongside a decrease in the number of offences involving firearms.
Figures published last week showed that although homicides in England and Wales increased 3% in the year ending March 2018, trends in homicide are affected by the recording of exceptional incidents with multiple victims such as the terrorist attacks in London and Manchester, and the figure is still below the peak in March 2008.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales assesses the level of lower-harm violent offences - for example, violence without injury and assault with minor injury - is stable.
The latest ONS release on Crime in England and Wales - for the year ending September 2018 – states that “over recent decades we’ve seen continued falls in overall levels of crime but in the last year there has been no change.”
As this states, the Crime Survey is the most reliable indicator for long-term trends and police recorded crime statistics do not always provide a reliable measure of levels and trends.
There has been no change in commonly occurring types of violent crime.
Although assault admissions increased, they were still 33% lower than in 2008.
At last month’s North Wales Police briefing, we heard that North Wales is still one of the safest places to live, that they were focussed on prevention, but that crime is evolving to cyber, child sexual exploitation , modern slavery and domestic violence.
They told us that they were having to detain too many people under the Mental Health Act because other agencies were not there for the people concerned and that ambulance availability and response times were resulting in them being used as the first point of triage, despite not being efficient paramedics.
There is also continuing concern about the Welsh Government’s handling of the Apprenticeship Levy, with Welsh Police Forces denied access to £2 million they contribute annually for training.
Despite receiving more Treasury Net Funding than previously for this, an extra £600,000 Home Office funding for Police Training in 2018/19 – and £400,000 promised for Police training the Welsh Government still has missing cash from previous years contributions which should be addressing this gap.