Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of reductions in funding made between 2010 and 2015 on police forces that have been rated as outstanding for efficiency by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) have found that there is no simple link between funding and efficiency. As the Home Secretary has previously set out, it is often the need to make savings that drives innovation and change for the better.

In future, we believe that the allocation of core Government funding to the police should be on the basis of relative need, and that is why the Government has committed to replacing the current, outdated arrangements.

HMIC set out in their latest PEEL inspection report (October 2015), that there remain significant efficiencies to be delivered from ICT, collaboration and improving workforce capability.