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Police

I agree. The Metropolitan Police Authority received the lion’s share of the remaining funding, although the Government withdrew £70 million. The Met received approximately two thirds of what remained, leaving the provincial forces even shorter of resources. That means that they cannot provide the promised number of PCSOs. As ACPO’s head of finance pointed out, the settlement is not all that it seems. A range of specific grants, for example, for forensics, supports the general grant. In most cases, they have been frozen. Consequently, as ACPO’s head of finance, Dr. Tim Brain, who is also chief constable of Gloucestershire, said, the overall value of the general grant to forces and authorities has been substantially reduced. That will put further pressure on force budgets. In my force in Sussex, the special formula grants for rural policing, forensic testing, special priority payments and south-east allowances will remain unchanged and frozen at last year’s levels. That amounts to a cut of 2.8 per cent. in real terms and will cause the force and the authority problems.