Fears extra Lincolnshire Police funding could dry up

Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner fears windfall schemes such as the Safer Streets Fund could disappear next year following the government’s Autumn Statement on Thursday.

However, Marc Jones said it would be a “shame but understandable” with the Home Office looking to spend £1 billion less.

Lincolnshire Police itself will have to find more than £5 million extra funds next year “just to stand still” he said, however, he promised that if residents did not want to see tax rises there would not be any.

“Any government would find the current financial challenges difficult, and I’m keenly concerned with home office spending, broadly the commitments that were made in our last comprehensive spending review, we’ve been told will be honoured.”

The Safer Streets Funding has helped pay for numerous extra CCTV cameras across the county in recent years.

“It will obviously be a matter for the Home Secretary how [money] ultimately is saved, some of which may be around related funding – things like the safer streets fund for example, we might not see future bidding rounds for that, which would be a shame but understandable.

“There is a clear commitment from government to prioritise police officer numbers, but from my perspective, there’s more to policing than just having uniformed officers.”

Mr Jones said that even if the force received a similar funding settlement to the current year, there was still going to be a 10% gap due to inflation, on top of rising fuel costs.

“There are significant gaps already in our budget, so just to stand still, we will need to spend roughly £5 million more next year than we did last without doing anything differently.”

He was confident, however, that he was trodding familiar ground and noted he succeded when he was first elected to pull the force back from the precipice.

New cameras organised by Lincolnshire Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones cover routes into and out of the city centre thanks to Safer Streets Funding. | Image: Daniel Jaines

Mr Jones’ budget plans are currently out for consultation, but include an option to rise the policing council tax precept by nearly £10 again without sparking a public referendum.

“I’ve always taken the view that the public need to decide which of those two things is their priority,” he said.

“So if through our consultation the public say we can’t afford council tax to go up… then it won’t, and services will be cut.

“If they equally say law and order is more important to me, and therefore I would rather pay that few pounds more a year, then I will deliver that.”

For several years Lincolnshire Police has been the lowest funded force in the country and Mr Jones believes there may be hope on the horizon – but not next year.

Work on the national funding formula review is ongoing, and the PCC said it was expected to be delivered, with Mr Jones adding he hoped it would come forward in 2024/25.

However, he added: “We have been here before… so I’m not going to spend that money if we got any increase until we have it.

“There’ll be prudent management of budgets, we’ll live within our means as much as we can, we’ll use reserves effectively to maximise the service our residents get, but rest assured we’re fighting for every change possible at a national level to make it a fairer system for Lincolnshire.”

To have your say on the Lincolnshire Police and Crime budget for 2023/24, visit here: www.bit.ly/prpccsurvey

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