Police lose out on £15 million

12.11.54pm UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 16th Feb 2007

Cllr David Ward is defending the police budget against government cuts

On the day that the Police Authority sets its budget, Cllr David Ward, chair of the Bradford North Area Committee has hit out at the Government for failing to allocate £15.1m to West Yorkshire Police.

He said,

" The Government has a formula for working out how much each police authority gets on the basis of its needs and resources. This sounds fair but it does mean that some police forces like West Yorkshire would get an increase because they have greater needs and others would get a decrease.

Rather than face the problem of cutting some forces' budgets or putting more money into the system , the Government decided to give everyone a flat rate increase of 3.6% .

This is the second year running that this has happened. The Government should either give up on the fiction that police grants are related to local needs or they should move towards funding West Yorkshire at the right level. The money could then be spent on putting more police officers on the street."