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A week before the Chancellor publishes her Spending Review, where she sets out the budgets for public services over the next three years, police and fire chiefs have set out the case for deeper investment in the frontline to ensure infrastructure as well as innovation is properly funded.
In a letter from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), the Times reported senior police chiefs telling the Prime Minister: “We understand that the Treasury [is] seeking to finalise departmental budget allocations this week and that the negotiations between the Home Office and the Treasury are going poorly.
“We are deeply concerned that the settlement for policing and the [NCA], without additional investment, risks a retrenchment to what we saw under austerity. This would have far-reaching consequences.
“Policing and the NCA have seen a sustained period where income has not kept pace with demand. Often, this has been masked by attempts to defer costs in the hope of more income in future, but that now leaves policing with very limited room for manoeuvre.
“A settlement that fails to address our inflation and pay pressures flat would entail stark choices about which crimes we no longer prioritise. The policing and NCA workforce would also shrink each year.”
Not only are police chiefs seeking to influence the outcome of the Spending Review, which for them will come out of the Home Office Settlement, fire chiefs have done the same.
Fire funding has moved away from the Home Office to the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) set out their case for increased funding, urging that the fire and rescue service must not be “the forgotten emergency service.”
In a reminder of the pressures that fire and rescue services are under, the NFCC said that services are responding to “significantly more 999 incidents despite a shrinking workforce.” Data from MHCLG provided by the NFCC shows that incident numbers are up 20% in the last decade with the number of firefighters down by 25% – the equivalent of 11,000 wholetime firefighters.
Emphasising the growing risks of climate change and emerging energy technology, the NFCC said: “underinvestment in fire will also undermine national resilience.”
“If we leave fire and rescue services without proper financial support and investment, we risk undermining public and firefighter safety. When it comes to wildfires, flooding and terrorism – fire and rescue services are right at the heart of the response. If we fail to invest, then we need to be prepared to answer to the communities that rely on these services in their greatest time of need.
“The world has changed, and we cannot rely on an outdated funding model that has removed all capital funding and hasn’t responded to a changing demand profile or the impact of the climate change crisis to underpin a service as crucial as fire and rescue.”
Phil Garrigan, Chair, National Fire Chiefs Council.
The Chancellor will announce the Spending Review 2025 on 11 June.
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