Police budget will increase officer numbers and tackle crime

Police and Crime Commissioner Paddy Tipping’s police budget looks set to recruit 40 more police officers, significantly boosting neighbourhood policing visibility and strengthening the work to tackle knife crime and robbery.

The Commissioner will present the proposed budget for 2019-20 to the Police and Crime Panel at its meeting on 7 February.

A report published today shows that this budget will enable the recruitment of an additional 40 frontline police officers during the coming year in addition to the increase in the last eighteen months which has taken numbers over 2000*.

• Of these 40 new posts, 33 officers will be deployed into Neighbourhood Policing teams for a local, visible and reassuring policing resource across the whole force area.

• Seven officers will form a force robbery team.  Following the success of the burglary and knife crime teams, this new robbery team will work closely with the knife crime team to pro-actively target offenders. 

• Knife and hate crime prevention activity aimed at younger people, particularly those who are moving from primary to secondary education, will be increased in partnership with the third sector.

Paddy Tipping explained that he had listened closely to public views before working with the Chief Constable to develop a budget to increase visibility and respond to what the public want.

He said: “People want to see more officers out and about in communities. They want to feel safe, and be safe, on the streets and in their neighbourhoods. We must address the issues that concern people most.

“That’s why I also fund a number of crime prevention initiatives in the community and the Chief Constable has put Schools Officers across the force. We want to broaden this preventative approach by working with local schools and the third sector at a time when both are under considerable strain. It’s a longer-term investment aimed at enabling younger people to make good life choices as, sadly, at the moment young people continue to be over-represented as both victims and offenders in knife-related crime.”

Chief Constable Craig Guildford added that: “Public surveys keep telling us that people want to see local Neighbourhood officers patrolling their area and solving problems, investigating crimes and tackling ASB.

“We will also have a new robbery team, which will operate across the force, responding to intelligence and using some of the most intrusive policing techniques in our bid to make Nottinghamshire a no-go area for robbery and violent crime.”

The Commissioner will present his plans to the Police and Crime Panel for its scrutiny and approval of the policing precept. He will explain that he intends to set the budget for policing Nottinghamshire in 2019/20 at £206.3m, with a Band D property paying a total of £219.33 per annum towards policing. However, as we know most people will pay less than this due to the predominance of Band A and B properties across the force area.

Facts and Figures:

The revenue budget for policing and community safety in Nottinghamshire for 2019-20 is proposed at a figure of £206.3m, £13.2m more than the 2018-19 figure of £193.1m.

Of this, £138.6m comes from the Government and £69.5m comes from local taxpayers through the policing precept on the council tax.

 *  1980 Full Time Equivalent

Download the full papers here  Police & Crime Panel 7th February 2019

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