Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 6
6
Accepted
Set out new accountability and funding arrangements to improve police productivity and governance.
Recommendation
The outdated and piecemeal approach to funding police forces is frustrating efforts to secure long-term productivity improvements. In November 2025, the Home Office was still working to develop an affordable plan to increase the number of personnel in neighbourhood policing roles by 13,000 by 2029. The government provided £200 million in 2025–26 to recruit 3,000 additional personnel but forces do not know what funding will be provided from 2026–27 onwards. The Home Office is still using the out-dated police funding formula, which our predecessor Committee recommended be reformed in 2015. The formula was revised 5 in 2013 but subsequent demographic changes and regional variations in precept funding have created increasing financial pressures in some forces, with Bedfordshire Police and Warwickshire Police, for example, seeing government funding per capita fall by nearly 12% since 2015. We were also concerned that funding allocations did not reflect the needs of rural forces. Since 2023–24, the Home Office has provided £123 million of emergency funding to help some forces manage pressures. The new White Paper will be an important step in setting out the Home Office’s vision for policing reform. It offers the opportunity to clarify the leadership role the Home Office will play and how forces will be held to account following the abolition of police and crime commissioners. recommendation After the publication of the White Paper on police reforms, the Home Office should write to the Committee setting out how the new accountability arrangements will support it in leading the policing system to improve its productivity and deliver government’s policy commitments. In doing so, it should: a. set out in detail the new governance arrangements that will replace police and crime commissioners in those areas where there is no regional mayor; and b. explain how it will revise existing funding arrangements to provide police forces with an equitable and stable basis from which to m
Government Response Summary
The government accepted the recommendation, noting the publication of the Police Reform White Paper detailing new governance arrangements and a review of the police funding formula following an independent review of force structures. The Home Office also confirmed it wrote to the Committee with further details.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented Changes to police governance, force mergers and the creation of the National Police Service require a new way of allocating funding between forces, aligned with these new structures. The Police Reform White Paper confirmed that the Home Office will review the police funding formula once the implementation of police reform is underway so that the new formula reflects the new police force structures. The Home Office will launch an independent review into police force structures to consider the right model for local policing, which will report in the summer. The scope of any review of the funding formula will need to reflect the outcome of this independent process. The Home Office wrote to the Committee on the 4 March with further details.