In the last few days, every household in Sussex received a leaflet which explains about the level of the Police precept which is due to be collected through the Council Tax starting this month. The leaflet was written by Katy Bourne, the Police and Crime Commissioner, who also wrote a manifesto when she stood for election back in 2012, part of which is reproduced here. In this years leaflet she begins by stating: “The Government allocates a grant to Sussex Police….This year’s police grant will be the same as last year and the Government is clear that local communities are expected to meet an increasing proportion of policing costs. This is why they have allowed PCCs to increase the police precept. We can all see that demands on police forces are rising…. At the same time, other public services are shrinking and police often remain the service of last resort”

Katy is not the only Sussex based Politician who has been communicating about police funding in recent months. Over in Hastings the local MP is Amber Rudd who also happens to be the nations Home Secretary. Back in November Amber spoke to a national meeting of Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables at their get together and stated “Of course, part of being a police and crime commissioner is about speaking to the government about resourcing. But it mustn’t just be about lobbying the government for money. It needs to be about cutting crime, delivering on the priorities you were elected on and being held to account by local people in your area when you don’t.”

Placed next to each other, these statements imply a certain degree of flexibility with the truth. The fact is that Katy along with her colleagues was told she could ask for more money from the Government and therefore the grant is not set in stone. The Sussex Police and Crime Panel which is supposed to hold our PCC to account should be telling Katy in no uncertain terms that along with any local increase in the precept, there is every reason to demand an increase from the Home Office in funding for Sussex Police.

Yesterday a report that was commissioned by the Home Office was leaked to the media stating that cuts to officer numbers has ‘likely contributed’ to a rise in serious violent crime across the country. Despite this Amber Rudd claimed that she had not seen the report and stated that it is a ‘mistake’ and ‘simplistic’ to see a link between the numbers of police officers and crime levels. It is certainly clear that there is no simple link between the numbers of police officers and the levels of crime. However no one would argue to reduce police forces to zero and as Ms Bourne stated, demands on policing numbers are actually increasing.

When Katy wrote the manifesto shown above, she was the only PCC candidate in Sussex who promised a freeze in the Police precept. The reason for this was that her Conservative Party was arguing for a freeze in the Council Tax at the time. Since then she has changed her mind at the same time as her Party has changed its mind and they both now agree that Sussex residents should pay more for policing through our Council Tax. The gap in the equation is that despite Amber Rudd telling Katy and her colleagues that they should lobby the Government for a larger police budget, so far Katy has failed to do so, so we need to tell her to go and do her job properly.