'Lack of funding is criminal' says Chair of Cleveland Police Federation
It's after the Chancellor made her spending review announcement last week
The Chair of Cleveland Police Federation is calling on the Government to help a 'broken' system, saying the lack of funding is criminal.
It comes a week after Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in her spending review that policing will be given an extra 2.3 percent funding in real terms.
Paul Crowley said: "It's no surprise that violent crime is at its highest, crime is at its highest at the moment. The Government needs to take responsibility for that and they need to take responsibility as to why we've ended up in this situation we have.
"I know day in and day out police officers are working their hardest; they're using their own time to update victims, they're having their rest days cancelled, they're working 24/7 to try and eradicate this. All we're asking for is the Government to meet us in the middle. That's it. Nothing more and nothing less.
"What this message is that the Government's sending is that everything's OK, because what they're proposing to do is keep everything at the status quo and the status quo isn't good enough. We need improvement now and we need to be able to demonstrate and have the tools and the funding to be able to do that.
"It's absolutely criminal. We shouldn't be in this position. What we should be in a opsition is we protect the people that protect us. We look after them and the way that we do that is we give a remuneration package that is equal with the amount of workload they have to do, but also the conditions and the pay, bearing in mind as well that officers don't have the ability to strike.
"I'm always hopeful that they would sit up and recognise the situation that policing is in because policing is, in my opinion, broken as it stands. In my experience, I've never seen morale so low and I've never seen officers having to resort to foodbanks in my time."
Police Federation of England and Wales Acting National Chair Tiff Lynch said: "This Spending Review should have been a turning point after 15 years of austerity that has left policing - and police officers - broken. Instead, the cuts will continue, and it’s the public who will pay the price.
"As rank-and-file officers kit up, they’ll do so knowing exactly where they stand in the government’s priorities. It is beyond insulting for Cabinet Ministers to call on police to “do their bit” when officers are overworked, underpaid, and under threat like never before.
"They are facing blades and bricks, managing mental health crises while battling to protect their own, and carrying the weight of trauma and financial stress home with them every day.
"Police pay has fallen by over 20 per cent in real terms since 2010. The number of crimes allocated to each officer has jumped by a third in a decade. We will lose 10,000 experienced officers a year to resignation by the end of this spending review period - driven out by poor pay and unacceptable working conditions.
"Chancellor Rachel Reeves' announcement used the phrase 'spending power' to talk about police funding. That means that unless every police and crime commissioner in England and Wales increases their council tax precept to the maximum each and every year of this spending review period, policing will have even less.
"This Chancellor hasn't listened to police officers. She hasn't listened to the Home Secretary. She hasn't listened to the public's concerns about community safety.
"We await the government’s decision on police pay in the coming weeks. But with this Spending Review, the signs are deeply worrying; the consequences will be even more so. And those consequences sit squarely on the shoulders of the Chancellor and the Prime Minister."
A Home Office spokesperson said: “This year, we gave the police £1.2 billion boost – including £200 million to put 3,000 neighbourhood officers in post by spring. And last week, the Chancellor built on this with a real-terms increase of 2.3% for policing.
“Funding allocations for individual police forces will be confirmed in the police settlement and we will continue to work with the police to make the best use of this funding to put more officers into our neighbourhoods and keep our streets safe to support delivery of our Plan for Change.”