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Select Committee · Public Accounts Committee

Increasing police productivity

Status: Open Opened: 10 Jul 2025 18 recommendations 12 conclusions 1 report

Total police funding in 2025-26 is £19.6bn, with approx. 70% of this made up of central government funding and the rest raised through council tax. Government is aiming to put 13,000 additional police officers, police community support officers and special constables into neighbourhood policing roles, paid for by tackling waste through a programme of reform. …

Clear

Reports

1 report
Title HC No. Published Items Response
63rd Report - Increasing police productivity HC 1239 28 Jan 2026 30 Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

3 items
25 Recommendation 63rd Report - Increasing police product… Deferred

Slow scaling of police innovation hindered by funding cuts and a crowded delivery landscape.

Despite these opportunities, scaling innovation and new technologies across the 43 police forces in England and Wales has been slow. The Home Office and College of Policing acknowledged the lack of speed and told us that scale-up was the biggest barrier.65 We asked about the mechanisms needed to scale innovation.66 …

Government response. The government agrees to provide an update in July 2027 on the steps taken to speed up the adoption of new technologies and support police forces to improve their productivity, including the technologies with the greatest potential, support for the …
HM Treasury
26 Recommendation 63rd Report - Increasing police product… Deferred

Police forces face significant funding constraints for IT system improvements and new technology.

We asked if police forces had sufficient funding to improve their IT systems,71 particularly given the financial pressures they are facing, which has led them to increase borrowing to fund capital programmes.72 Forces also spend around 80% of their funding on officer and staff pay, which means they have limited …

Government response. The government agrees and sets a target implementation date of December 2029, noting that the National Police Service will consider these recommendations further once established; meanwhile, the Home Office is working closely with policing to modernise IT systems and is …
HM Treasury
29 Conclusion 63rd Report - Increasing police product… Deferred

Outdated police funding formula creates structural gaps for forces amid demographic changes since 2015.

In its 2015 report on the financial sustainability of police forces, our predecessor Committee recommended that a new police funding formula be introduced in 2016–17.80 In our evidence session, we asked whether changing demographics meant the out-of-date formula had led to a structural funding gap.81 We were also concerned about …

Government response. The Home Office will review the police funding formula once the implementation of police reform is underway and will launch an independent review into police force structures to consider the right model for local policing, which will report in the …
HM Treasury

Oral evidence sessions

1 session
Date Witnesses
24 Nov 2025 Bethan Page-Jones · Home Office, Dame Antonia Romeo DCB · Ministry of Justice, James Bottomley · College of Policing, Richard Clarke · Home Office, Sir Andy Marsh QPM · College of Policing View ↗

Correspondence

4 letters
DateDirectionTitle
12 Mar 2026 To cttee Letter from the Acting Permanent Secretary at the Home Office relating to the C…
23 Feb 2026 To cttee Letter from the Chief Executive Officer of the College of Policing relating to …
8 Jan 2026 To cttee Letter from the Second Permanent Secretary at the Home Office relating to the C…
15 Dec 2025 To cttee Letter from the Chief Executive Officer at The College of Policing relating to …