‘High performance’ budget to keep you safe from crime

by Chris Nelson, Police and Crime Commissioner for Gloucestershire

With the cost of living crisis, no one wants to see their bills go up.  Yet in a recent County wide survey, two thirds of you said the police budget was under-funded.

So I was particularly pleased that my latest budget was given unanimous cross-party support at the County Police and Crime Panel. Good politics is about finding consensus and achieving what a majority of people can agree with.

My team and I have worked hard to keep this year’s council tax rise as low as possible.  Despite pay inflation of 7%, and given the police budget is made up of 80% salaries, your police council tax will only go up 4.4%, which works out at just 25p extra per week.

What will you see for this extra money?  It will consolidate and preserve all the success and investment we have made during my three years in office.  That means continuing to support the increase of over 400 more police officers, PCSOs and front- line police staff.  The Constabulary will shortly have more police officers than it had in 2010; the largest number of police staff we have ever had as well as the largest number of Special Constables and the third largest number of PCSOs in England per 1000 population in the country.

All these extra personnel will help the Constabulary’s new way of working - introduced across the force last summer – with the aim of improving response times, increasing arrests, all leading to more crimes being solved. It will help maintain our relentless focus on anti-social behaviour (already cut by over 50%), cutting the cost of rural crime (down 29%) and cutting online scams and fraud by 30%.

This budget will also build on the Constabulary’s success in getting out of special measures in record time and set the foundations for future progress.  The Chief and I are determined to see the force become one of the best in the country, and we have plans to do that over the next four years.  Should I have the privilege of being re-elected this May, we will work together to achieve this aim.

No one likes paying more for anything but I believe this really is a fair, reasonable and balanced budget that has wide political and public support.  More to the point, it will deliver more police and higher performance, keeping you safe from crime.