Commissioner to give evidence showing unfairness of funding formula
Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Hogg will today (Tuesday) tell the House of Commons’ Home Affairs Select Committee (HASC) why the Government’s proposed police funding formula is unfair, and particularly disadvantageous to Devon and Cornwall.
Mr Hogg has campaigned hard against the funding formula changes, which it is believed will cut funding to Devon and Cornwall by an extra £14 million.
Combined with current estimates of the likely impact of comprehensive spending review (CSR), it means that the local force will have to make total cuts of £54 million by 2019/20. Chief Constable Shaun Sawyer has now revealed that it could mean the loss of 760 officers and all of his 360 police community support officers (PCSOs).
Last month Mr Hogg delivered an 8,600+ signature public petition to Downing Street demanding that the police funding formula is amended.
Mr Hogg is one of three police and crime commissioners who will give evidence to today's HASC, chaired by Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP. Chief constables from Lancashire, Leicestershire and Surrey will also attend.
“I am pleased to have this opportunity to continue this debate at the very highest level,” said Mr Hogg.
“The public will know that I have already campaigned long and hard on their behalf over this issue, and the stakes are extremely high.
“The chief constable has told us what the impact of these massive cuts will be in terms of front line capability, and I am absolutely determined to do everything that I can to help mitigate the disastrous effect that I believe they will have on our communities in Devon and Cornwall.”
“I am continuing my intensive lobbying of Government and our local MPs on this issue, and I will be forthright in my views when I address the committee this afternoon.
"They will be under no illusion about the strength of feeling in Devon and Cornwall about how demonstrably unfair these funding proposals are to us.”
The full scale of the enormous cuts facing Devon and Cornwall will be finalised before the end of the year when the Chancellor George Osborne confirms his renewed CSR targets in the Autumn statement.
The planning assumptions used by Mr Hogg’s office to calculate the likely impact of £54million, are at the lower end of expectations – based upon a CSR savings requirement to policing budgets of 25% not 40%.
Mr Hogg is about the begin a wide scale public consultation across Devon and Cornwall to gauge the public’s willingness to pay more through their council tax police precept to protect some of police services that will be lost if the cuts take full effect.