Policing in England and Wales is to receive a provisional core grant from central government of £19.5 billion for the year 2026/27.
Home Office Crime and Policing Minister, Sarah Jones, said: “We are providing police forces with a significant increase in funding that will allow them to step up their efforts in tackling the crimes that are blighting our communities, including knife crime and antisocial behaviour. But we know that funding alone will not deliver our ambitions. Police leaders have been crying out for reform, and our upcoming white paper will deliver this to free up officer time and get bobbies back on our streets.”
Comment
Roger Hirst, the Conservative fire, police and crime commissioner for Essex, pictured, is the Joint Finance Lead for the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC). He said that PCCs and deputy mayors are facing difficult and often deeply unpalatable decisions. He pointed to a a gap of close to half a billion pounds in the funding available to policing and the actual costs forces face. The cost of salaries, goods and services, along with capital investments in existing technology, buildings and kit, are outstripping the money we have to pay for them, he said. “If you strip out just over £1 billion for counter-terrorism, it equates to an increase in cash terms of 4.2 per cent on 2025/26 which happens to be the same percentage increase as this year’s pay award.
“On the face of it, then, so far, so good in terms of covering the cost of increased salaries. But beyond the overall figures, there was no detail on how the next steps of the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee are to be paid for, nor the 10-year strategy to tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG) published the same day, nor indeed the Government’s pledge to halve knife crime. We are promised further detail in the new year.
“Police and crime commissioners (PCCs) fully support the Government’s strategic aims – they have reached totally unacceptable levels and are damaging too many lives. People understandably expect to feel safe and tell us consistently they want and value the reassurance of visible police patrols. PCCs have a uniquely close relationship with our communities so we know how much these things matter to them.
“We are acting on these public priorities, but initiatives of this kind cannot be delivered cost-free and that means they cannot be treated as business as usual. PCCs are concerned, too, that the burden for paying for such national priorities shouldn’t continue to be passed disproportionately to local communities through increases in the Council Tax precept.”
For his comments in full visit the APCC website.
The Home Office added that a final settlement providing more detail on grant allocations will be released early in 2026, once the Government’s police reform white paper has been published. Funding for Counter Terrorism Policing will increase by at least £52m, the Home Office added, to bring its total funding to up to more than £1.2 billion.
