Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what funding her Department provided in police pension top-up grants to each police force in England and Wales in each year since 2006-07.

Police pensions are funded by each police force paying employer and officer contributions into a separate account. These funds are then used to pay current police pensions.

Where the income into the police force’s pensions account is not sufficient to meet the cash cost of pensions being paid to retired officers, this is topped up by Home Office grant.

A breakdown across all forces is not available immediately. However, in total* the Home Office has provided the following top-up funding as follows:

• 2006/07 - £291million
• 2007/08 - £352million
• 2008/09 - £630million
• 2009/10 - £639 million
• 2010/11 - £721 million
• 2011/12 - £1,064 million
• 2012/13 - £1,218 million
• 2013/14 - £1,291million**
• 2014/15 - £1,441million***

* The total figure includes funding for all 43 forces in England and Wales as well as other bodies such as Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary.

** The figure for 2013/14 is based on police authorities' unaudited data only at this stage, and payment of the balance in respect of 2013/14 is yet to be made; the figure provided is the total expected grant requirement once the balance of payment in arrears has been made.

*** Forecast