Government 'inconsistent' on police funding

11.09.33am UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 1st Feb 2006

Councillor John Cole has labelled the Government 'inconsistent' in the way it allocates money to West Yorkshire Police in a motion presented to the Council on January 17th.

Cllr Cole said:

" The government wants West Yorkshire to have more Police Community Support Officers but has failed to provide enough money to cover even the first year of their employment.

On top of that, it has effectively stolen £14m by setting up a funding formula which should have given West Yorkshire more money but then imposed a flat rate increase across all forces which has given us less.

Finally, by saying that the Council Tax increase must be below 5%, the Government has limited that last source of extra funding.

The Police now face an impossible choice between meeting government targets for PCSOs or keeping up the number of police officers.

Given that the number of police officers per head of population in West Yorkshire is now the lowest among the metropolitan areas, this is a clear case of the left hand and the right hand of the home office not knowing what each is doing. "

The motion was agreed and the Chief Executive will be writing to the Home Secretary about it.