By Local Democracy Reporter Ciaran Duggan
Kent Police will be required to cut £9million from its budget in the next financial year.
Around £3m will have to be cut through the force’s finance savings programme while about a third of the savings have been achieved through the retirement of long-serving police officers who had reached a higher salary band than those replacing them.
Kent Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Scott said the force were having to be ‘smarter’ in finding savings during a council meeting at Maidstone County Hall on Friday.
Chief constable Alan Pughsley said: “The police service nationally has faced unprecedented financial challenges in recent years, with Kent Police alone having to identify more than £110 million worth of savings since 2010.
”It has therefore been essential for us to find more innovative and cost-effective ways of working while also protecting frontline services.”
Closures of police stations and front line counters are not expected to take place as part of the budget cuts.
But, other key savings include a £100,000 reduction in police expenses expenditure and a £78,000 decrease in fuel costs. Transport and uniform costs will be reviewed and IT costs will be reduced.
The move comes despite a rise in the police precept of the council tax in Kent, which is expected to generate around £8.4million from April 2020 to March 2021.
The planned savings were declared as part of the financial and came as part of a report compiled by the office of the Kent Police and Crime Commissioner.
Explaining the budget cuts, Mr Scott said: “They are to make sure we are able to reinvest all of the money that is being generated into front-line policing.
“Those savings have been identified. I am scrutinising those to make sure that they are fair and proportionate and that they don’t cause adverse consequences.”
Despite the cuts, Kent Police will be boosted by an extra 181 officers over the next financial year, including 147 as part of the Government’s planned 20,000 new officers.
The extra police numbers were promised by Tory Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, in the December General Election, although critics say the 20,000 only represent the numbers that have been cut since 2010.
In Kent, it will mean the total number of officers working across the county is expected to increase to 3,813 by March 31, 2021.
Austerity is alive and well. We need police commissioner to stand up to the tory government,oops forgot he’s a Tory
Barry come on now this is not about point scoring
this is peoples lives this will affect and all you can do is point score
Labour have cut services and sold off the NHS again messing with peoples lives is all that any party thinks is cool but it is not!
Thanet has had tax payers funds thrown at
one eiffel tower and no real regeneration
and the police are putting up their taxes on us with cuts
it sounds like KCC Barry an institution that laws itself
like a lot of things I know of and have started to kick off with them
Police we do not need them Barry we have you and KCC to stop all the criminals but you would say not in my ward. It is okay for offshore leaks people invest in our town is it Barry …NO
lets start with the auditors at KCC
licenced by us but are offshore leaks
Ramsgate seafront offshore leak
margate offshore leaks
panama to you lot who do not do proper checks
I don’t see any point scoring. Barry Lewis is right.
Of course Marva would say that about Barry. After all they do share the same bed and come hand in hand. Labour are the ones that caused this shambles when they was last in government.
The actual policing budget increased by over £1.1 million to £1.2 billion, with kent police having an increase of £24.3 million as opposed to last year.
The actual number of officers in Kent will increase by 2021.
The problem is they’re being taken for a ride by outsourced companies over charging on contracts such as the IT infrastructure. A bit like Barry’s and Marva’s imaginary safe 20mph zones, which aren’t safe, but will continue to lie to the general public. When independent stats prove that they aren’t safe and many councils removing them. But hey, what do they know?
The reality is that Police and Crime Commissioners are generally recycled councillors with little administrative experience. It was a Lib Dem idea foisted on Cameron. In 12 years of their existence they have cost £340m and current we waste £40 million a year on these dimwits. Whether Tory, Conservative or Lib Dem they are a complete waste of money.
I was amused to see Scott even left the handbrake off his car
Boris “ yes we will invest in more police” by cutting the budget????? Same old Tories same old lies.
Rebecca, it’s not point scoring. It’s simple facts.
Since the Tories came into power 10 years or so ago, they’ve cut police numbers by 22,000.
In his election manifesto, Boris promised 20,000 more police (still 2000 short).
This is absolute nonsense. Email Craig Mackinlay and tell him what you think of this bonkers idea.
But the article says we are getting more police officers
yet detectives are now getting an extra £1200 a year, surely in times of cuts we shouldn’t be giving pay rises
Rather than the points scoring and the political blame game, the bottom line is that the police budget and the officers on the street need to be increased.
The only people who would not agree to paying a few more pounds a year for a better service would be the criminals.
3,813 coppers of all ranks and designations to serve the whole of the county on a 24 hour basis is clearly not enough.
Police 0 – criminals 6. 11 years of continual cuts to all services.
Oh what a nice move KCC – force an 8.4% risee in the Police Precept part of the council tax bill whilst slashing their support by 9% and using the money to feather their own mini empires.
First we had extra for social care, now we have extra for a desk bound, inefective police force.
What next, a 11% rise to pay useless KCC executives bouses. Sorry bosses but you’ve been rumbled!
Why do people vote for the Tories ?
Quite simply , because they are the lesser of two evils. For example, my mother lives in a house that is the total lifes work of her and my late father, both left school at 14 , he passed away at 74 still working , she is 78 and still working. Fallen back on the state for nothing in that time, both labour and conservatives see the house she lives in as a source of taxation, under labour there was a chance she’d have had to give it up earlier than need be, Under the tories at least it’ll hopefully be enough to see her days out in comfort.
Quite why she and millions of others should be expected to pay ever more to support those that only have to work 16 hours a week is beyond those that managed to make life a bit easier for themselves.
The criminal justice system is broken , petty theft, minor assault, drug dealing, antisocial behaviour have been effectively decriminalised, society doesn’t want to punish those that make the lives of others a misery, instead it wants to say that its societies fault for failing the miscreants.
My experience of cliftonville and thanet in general over the last 35 years is that there’s a substantial core who have no interest in doing anything for anyone other themselves and getting by in whatever way suits them on any given day.
They’ll never be brought into line, you can only try and minimise the disruption they cause, which is what has happened in terms of the cash thrown at them, paying the water bill is optional along with council tax, emergency/crisis loans, free prescriptions and the services they receive ( 20% of the population use 80% of services) is the hidden cost of it all.
There are no doubt those that do try and they are the ones trotted out in articles to prove a point, but ithey are often the exception.
In the meantime the ever increasing tax burden and direction of travel means that there is no point trying to be reasonable and that the best course is often to just try and extract as much as possible as soon as possible , because sooner or later the assumption will be that you’ve done just that and be taxed accordingly wether you have or not.
A sad state of affairs all round, and there is no political party that’ll change it.
The thought of having a labour government,particularly in these troubled times gives me the shivers.The Tories are the only party capable of running the country,the current labour regime are clueless,
The only people to benefit from Tory policies are the wealthy.
It is an inescapable fact that under the Tories, the fabulously rich top 10% or so have got even more wealthy whilst the poor have got poorer and poorer.
So, if you own a few yachts on the Mediterranean, a couple of chateaux in France, and have several £100M stashed away on a bank in the BVI, then the Tories are the party for you.
Ditto if you have a lot of shares in private health companies. Under the Tories, you’re on a winner.
But under labour , the fabulously wealthy will just move elsewhere leaving those who’ve grafted and been a bit careful to pay for the “free everything” for those that haven’t, i and most i know have no problem with a system that looks after those truly unfortunate enough to need it ( it could one day be any of us), but i’ve no interest in funding the lifestyles and wants of those who only want to take.
I work primarily for me and mine.
Isn’t there a Labour leader candidate you should be giving a right old kicking instead of attacking the Tories?
It’s weird because every time the Tories are in power we are fed endless stories about how they are going to destroy (this latest perfect version of) the NHS. They never do. Yet we are told we are going back to the 1930’s (at least) if they dare to try and change anything.
The Conservatives make changes to the NHS and so do Labour. At the time of the changes we are told that it is the destruction of the NHS yet the very next time anyone tries to make changes we are told that the current iteration is as near to perfection as is possible.
Do you think that the bovine falsely conscious proles have seen through the endless catastrophising and can see that the “utterly devastated” NHS is still here, is treating record numbers whilst failing to match the outcomes of other country-wide health provision services in other European countries, and come to the conclusion that Labour simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth?
Of course you are going to say no but the last election with it’s cornucopia of freebies and ambiguity on Brexit must have given some clue as to their thinking, yes?
Or were they all manipulated by the MSM?
Oh and Marva, give it a break. Labour was wiped out at the ballot box, and rightly so! Especially local.