Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of consolidating the specific grant for the Police Uplift Programme into the core policing grant.

The 2026-27 provisional police funding settlement (18 December) published that total funding to Territorial Police Forces will be up to £18.3 billion, an increase of up to £746 million compared to the 2025-26 police funding settlement. This equates to a 4.2% cash increase and a 2.0% real terms increase for the policing system. On 16^th January, forces received a letter inviting views on the delivery of Neighbourhood Policing model.

The Government has listened to policing’s concerns about the Officer Maintenance Grant and its requirement to achieve a specified officer headcount target. This funding mechanism has in some instances led to forces placing more officers in back-office roles which is not helpful in supporting visible policing and prevents forces from building a workforce with the mix of skills necessary to tackle crime.

The Government’s position is that people want to see neighbourhood police on the streets. We recognise the need to improve trust and confidence in policing – strengthening neighbourhood policing is a way of achieving that goal.

Final force level funding allocations for 2026-27 will be published at a Final Police Funding Settlement by the end of January.