Lincolnshire PCC says force needs extra £15million funding

PCC Jones, who was recently re-elected for his third term in May, has repeatedly highlighted how the force is one of the worst funded in the country per resident.

After his calls on the government have not been heard for almost a decade, he recently threatened legal action against the Home Office to introduce a new funding formula for police forces in England and Wales.

Mr Jones argues that the current funding formula uses old population statistics from 2013 and outdated metrics like pubs per square mile.

He said: “It’s been a constant theme of Lincolnshire Police that when we’re putting together the medium-term financial plans, there is usually an element of the budget that we have to fill with spending reserves, and that continues to be the case.

“At the moment, we are filling the gap in reserves by around £7.5 million, but what we do tend to be very successful at is bidding for additional funding yearly, which quite often means we don’t have to spend most of the reserves that we expected we might, so the reserves are still available to fill a gap later on.

“The only other way I can fill that gap is by reducing the service, and obviously we’ve not needed to do that. We continue to battle to maintain the service we’ve got.”

When asked exactly how much more Lincolnshire Police would need for its budget, Mr Jones estimated that between £10 million to £15 million would be beneficial.

He believes an additional £10 million would help them “deal with the worst of the issues” they’re facing, while an additional £15 million would make the force sustainable. Any amount over £15 million would allow them to increase the service they provide.

He added: “Believe me, we could spend as much as they could provide us with, but nevertheless, at the moment we have 155 officers per hundred thousand population, against 191 in the average.

“If they brought us up to the average, that would be great – that would give us an extra 300 to 400 people to police the county. That would be where I would want to be. But, I’m realistic.”