The government has announced a 7% increase in policing funding, bringing the total to £1.1 billion. This amounts to a total of £16.9 billion for the financial year 2022/23.
The increase is supposed to aid in the implementation of the government’s Beating Crime Plan, which outlines the government’s strategic approach to crime reduction. The strategy outlines the areas where efforts will be concentrated, as well as the locations, persons, and criminal enterprises that feed the drug trade.
The strategy lays out “radical new strategies to reduce crime” as follows:
- Reuniting the public with the police – through an internet portal, everyone will have digital access to the cops. Neighborhood officers’ identities and contact information will be available in one spot, along with interactive police services.
- Better response to 101 and 999 calls – league tables will be produced for answering calls and ensuring that the public is aware of their local force’s responsiveness.
The goal of the intervention with young people is to keep them safe and away from violence. The focus will be on those who have been admitted to A&E with knife wounds or who have had contact with the authorities. Specialist teams will be dispatched to schools in regions where extreme violence is a problem in order to assist young people in returning to school. - Electronic monitoring – for significant acquisitive criminals, the use of this sort of surveillance will be expanded over a further 13 police regions. The emphasis will be on following up on persons who have been released from jail in order to prevent and identify subsequent acquisitive offences.
- Alcohol tags are tags that detect alcohol in the user’s sweat. They will be used on “drink-fueled” criminals who have been freed from jail in Wales. The purpose of the tags is to encourage people to improve their behaviour and prevent violence and alcohol-related crime.
- Employment – Detainees will be encouraged to find work, with the civil service intending to hire 1,000 detainees by the end of 2023.
- Knife crime – The standards for using section 60 searches will be loosened indefinitely to allow police to remove more knives from the streets.
- PCCs – the function of PCCs will be increased, and they will be provided the tools and levers they need to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour.
According to a recent government report, their efforts have resulted in a 14 percent decrease in overall crime, the hiring of 11,053 additional police officers, the closure of over 1,500 county lines, the removal of nearly 16,000 knives from the streets, and the outreach to 300,000 young people through the Violence Reduction Units.
If precept flexibility is fully utilised, funding for PCCs will increase by an additional £796 million. Over the next three years, PCCs will have up to £10 in precept flexibility per Band D property to use. The police precept is a method by which each police force raises additional funds for policing through the council tax system.
The government says the goal for 2022 is to see: more officers dedicated to serious organised crime; the creation of a National Crime Laboratory to drive the use of innovative data science to prevent and reduce crime; the testing of new ways to investigate rape cases; victims of rape and serious sexual crimes not being left without a phone for more than 34 hours; an increase in the monitoring of 101 and 999 call responsiveness; and investment in law enforcement.
After the provisional financial settlement is published, a period of consultation will begin, and the final police funding settlement will be debated in Parliament.