Suffolk Police says financial planning means it won’t need to borrow money for major projects
Police and Crime Commissioner says the force can fund developments, including a new control room project, from its own reserves.
Suffolk Police says money saved in last year’s budget will remain in the county to support future policing projects.
The force ended the financial year around £4.2 million under budget, but Police and Crime Commissioner Tim Passmore said the figure does not represent significant spending cuts.
He said the overall policing budget for the year was £197.2 million, meaning the difference accounts for less than 3% of the total.
Mr Passmore said part of the figure was due to additional income rather than reduced spending.
“A lot of the reason for the underspend is actually excess income, so it’s not really an underspend at all,” he said.
“We’ve actually earned £1.8 million more than was forecast 18 months previously from reserves held in banks and other financial institutions.”
He said other factors included lower staff costs due to vacancies and reimbursements when Suffolk officers provided support to other police forces.
“When we provide mutual aid to other forces we get reimbursed fully for the time and the cost of officers going there,” he said.
The commissioner said the money would be retained locally and placed into police reserves rather than returned to central government.
“That money will remain in Suffolk,” he said. “It goes into reserves and we use that for expenditure going forwards.”
Mr Passmore said the funds could help support major projects, including relocating the police control room to Landmark House, which he said could cost between £8 million and £9 million.
He added that the force’s financial position meant it could fund projects without borrowing large sums of money.
“We can do these things from within our own resources without having to borrow huge sums of money,” he said.
Mr Passmore said some other forces across the country were facing financial difficulties.
“Other forces… have borrowed lots of money and they’re now in difficulty,” he said.
“Here in Suffolk we are not.”
He said careful budgeting was important given the uncertainty of wider economic pressures.
“We’ve always taken a cautious view here in Suffolk because the world is very uncertain,” he said.