20/11/2025
Gary Mason
The focus on officer numbers is not giving forces the balanced work force they need in ICT, data analysis and other specialisms.
There are at least three police forces in ‘dire financial distress’ but there are still options left before they need to issue Section 114 notices – which mean they are effectively bankrupt – including shifting even more officers into staff roles and making redundancies.
This was the message on police budgets coming out of the NPCC/APCC summit this week. The police funding settlement is anticipated in December but how that is distributed, as everyone in policing knows, will be based on a formula that hasn’t changed since 2014. The underlying figures covering population density and deprivation have also not changed since that date. No new data has been inputted into the system such as a 10 million population growth since 1995 based on the census. Most of that growth has been centred on the south and east of England.
Norfolk chief constable Paul Sanford who is NPCC finance lead says: “I would suggest that if the funding formula had been updated just on population alone you would see a drift of funding towards the south east from the north and Wales.”
There have beeen numerous attempts to ‘fix’ the funding formula but none of these attempts have seen light of day mainly because if there is no change in the overall pot there will be winners and losers in any redistribution of wealth, adding pressure to some of those forces already in severe financial stress.
Estates and infrastructure cuts
Between 2011 and 2020, the austerity years, significant reductions were made in the police budget with forces predominantly making savings around estates and infrastructure. “The legacy of that is still being felt by a number of forces in the form of old and outdated technology and the state of our buildings,” CC Sanford adds.
The direct government grant that came with the 20,000 uplift improved the look of the graph but that increase in funding was predominantly eaten up by police officer salaries. “It has not enabled forces to invest in technology infrastructure – the IT platforms that we need,” CC Sanford says.
Of the total police budget for the whole of England and Wales – 52 per cent goes on police officer pay, 22 per cent on police staff pay (excluding PCSOs). Suppliers (which includes ICT) and other kit is 7 per cent of the total at around £2 billion. Most of that money is spent on maintaining legacy systems (90 per cent) with little opportunity to invest in new technologies that could transform policing.
CC Sanford adds: “As a police chief one of the frustrating things is you see the wonderful technologies that are available there for you to modernise and improve your service but we don’t have a capital grant.”
Staff cost £25K less
But is not only technology procurement which is the issue, the Uplift has further skewed the workforce mix in many forces. Of the 90,000 police staff in England and Wales 25,000 are in support roles which includes ‘back office’ ICT roles. The average police staff member costs £25K pa less than an officer but 72 per cent of staff work in front line roles such as control rooms and criminal justice support. They are vital to policing but not helping fill the ICT gap.
“Having so much of your budget fixed on police officer numbers does bring a challenge,” CC Sanford says. “Too often we end up putting police officers who cost more into the posts that higher trained police staff could do at a lower cost.”
These are analysts, data experts, online investigators who don’t need a warrant card to be very effective at their jobs and work in the background of policing.
CC Sandford says: “The police officer I recruit today will be in probation for two years before I can even begin to think about posting them into those specialisms [if they have the required skills]. Whereas with police staff I can recruit an expert now directly into that job. The focus on officer numbers does not give me the flexibility I need as chief.”
The demand for more neighbourhood policing could be partly met my moving those officers out of the staff roles but you still have to fill them he adds.
HMIC’s calculation that there are 6,000 officers in staff roles is an “under estimate” he adds even accounting for the fact that some officers on recuperative duties after injury or illness are put there as a temporary deployment.
Talent pool
Direct entry detective schemes – and Norfolk Constabulary has one in operation – tend to attract a very different kind of candidate. Aviva is one of the biggest employers in the county and Norfolk’s scheme attracts financial investigators from their insurance fraud department.
“That is a fantastic supply group for us,” says CC Sanford (pictured). “They have all the skills to challenge the type of criminality we are dealing with today. But actually do they even need the warranted powers? I still need to put them through the same mandated training set by the College of Policing.”
The other factor pressing down on work force balance within policing is the financial pentalites forces face if they don’t maintain their officer uplift numbers. Roger Hirst, is PFCC for Essex and is also the financial lead for the APCC. He says in the force he represents if it were to go below the ring fenced uplift ‘floor’ it would have to lose 215 officers to just break even on the loss of grant. So it’s a real incentive if you are looking at roles that could be filled by either officers or staff to keep the numbers at the agreed level.
Chief constables don’t know what next month’s funding settlement will be but on past experience the NPCC feels some forces will face severe challenges not to cut services. “Forces are already making difficult decisions about the capabilities they have,” says CC Sanford. “When you can’t reduce your police officer numbers it’s too often those police staff posts that get sacrificed. Yet it is often those posts that have the capabilities we need.”
Point of criticality
The neighbourhood policing guarantee means that more officers will need to be employed by forces but even before they think about growing CC Sanford says forces are facing deficits of £0.6billion and some are already eating into reserves. Removing the headcount target is a topic the NPCC has discussed with the current Home Office ministerial set up but there is no indication either way of what might be in the reform White Paper.
So how bad might things get for those forces teetering on the edge of a financial cliff? CC Sanford says we have not reached the stage of 114 notices yet. “Before 114 notices forces can put more officers in back office roles and they can just keep doing that ,” he says. “But it doesn’t represent good policing. I don’t think serving a notice is the point of criticality.”
Roger Hirst agrees. “Before you see a Section 114 you will see a substantial service reduction.” He says there are around three forces who are already in the process of doing that – they have lost their PCSOs and made staff redundant – and have few other places to turn to in order to ‘downsize’ the organisation.