No more cash for coppers

The latest politician to ‘fess up’ that there is diddly squat left in the public purse is Police Minister Vernon Coaker.

The Notts MP told Lobbydog that there will be no extra cash-pots for historically under-funded police forces and that looking forward it’s all about being “efficient.”

That’s a blow for forces who reckon they’re not getting enough cash under the current Home Office funding formula.

At the moment officials work out how much cash each force needs to bring it ‘up to standard’ – but they then impose either a ‘floor’ or a ‘ceiling’ on how much funding can fall or rise within a given year.

The idea is that no force’s funding falls too quickly, avoiding instability, but the off-shoot is that no force’s funding rises too quickly either.

For those that have a historic shortage of cash it means it can take years to catch up with others. Such forces, like Derbyshire for example, have been pushing for top-up cash to their settlement.

But Coaker told Lobbydog: “There won’t be additional pots of money made available to bring any police forces up to the funding level they might get if the formula was strictly applied.”

But even after the current funding system expires in 2011 things are not looking bright.

“The funding figures are set for 2010 and 2011 and past that it’s difficult to see what’s going to happen,” Coaker said.

“But what everybody is saying is that you are not going to get to a situation where there are huge amounts of public money available.

“It will be about getting the most out of what has already been spent.”

Did we hear that? It will be about getting the most out of what’s already been spent. Where does that leave new proposals – on things like inheritance tax for example?