Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee

63rd Report - Increasing police productivity

Public Accounts Committee HC 1239 Published 28 January 2026

Report Status

Government responded

Conclusions & Recommendations

30 items (18 recs)

Source

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Government Response

AI assessment · 30 of 30 classified

Accepted 14

Accepted in Part 1

Acknowledged 11

Deferred 3

Not Addressed 1

Recommendations

11 results

2 Accepted

Set out arrangements across government to quantify policy change impact on policing resources.

Recommendation

The Home Office does not understand how wider policy changes affect the demand on police resources. Police forces face growing demands as they take on additional responsibilities and tackle increasing volumes of more complex crimes, for example, the number of … Read more

Government Response Summary

The government states the recommendation is implemented, citing the Police Reform White Paper and existing Consolidated Budgeting Guidance for considering policy impacts on policing. It is currently working with policing stakeholders and relevant departments to assess existing processes and identify necessary changes to manage these burdens.

HM Treasury

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3 Accepted

Assess implications of maintaining police officer numbers on force efficiency and workforce flexibility.

Recommendation

Police forces have limited flexibility to recruit people with the skills they need. Since the Police Uplift Programme was established in 2019, the government has ringfenced funding on the condition that forces maintain officer numbers, allocating £270 million to forces … Read more

Government Response Summary

The government states it has assessed the implications of maintaining police officer numbers, concluding that the officer maintenance grant was a barrier to visible policing. As a result, the grant and officer headcount targets will be abolished from April 2026 to improve workforce flexibility and support neighbourhood policing.

HM Treasury

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4 Accepted

Set out timeline and detailed plan for achieving planned police efficiency savings and standardisation.

Recommendation

The Home Office has not established how it will achieve the planned savings in its police efficiency and collaboration programme. The Home Office has identified £354 million of potential savings over the period to 2028–29 but recognises that achieving this … Read more

Government Response Summary

The government states the Police Efficiency and Collaboration Programme (PECP) targets £354 million in cashable efficiencies by 2028-29, and thousands of officer hours saved. It details how savings will be achieved through commercial strategies, productivity improvements, data, and shared services, confirming targets were agreed with the Treasury and will be reported via a Benefits Strategy.

HM Treasury

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5 Accepted

Provide an update on accelerating new technology adoption to improve police force productivity.

Recommendation

It is taking too long to identify and scale-up innovative practices and roll-out new technologies to improve police productivity. There are many examples of police forces exploiting innovative technologies—including audio-visual multimedia redaction, live facial recognition and enhanced video response—but scaling … Read more It is taking too long to identify and scale-up innovative practices and roll-out new technologies to improve police productivity. There are many examples of police forces exploiting innovative technologies—including audio-visual multimedia redaction, live facial recognition and enhanced video response—but scaling these across all 43 police forces has been slow. The Home Office is implementing some of the changes from the 2023 Policing Productivity Review but has reduced funding to support the roll-out of new technologies from £105 million in 2024–25 to £50 million in 2025–26. As around 80% of police funding is committed to staff pay costs, police forces have limited flexibility to invest in new technologies and have been forced to increase their borrowing to fund their capital programmes. The College of Policing acknowledged that the large number of bodies involved in the roll-out of innovative practices, including identifying and scaling innovations with the greatest potential, was not the most effective way of operating. There is also scope to improve police productivity by streamlining processes. The College of Policing has developed a diagnostic tool to help police forces identify opportunities, in areas such as burglary, but its launch has been delayed. 4 recommendation The Home Office should provide the Committee with an update in six months on the steps it has taken to speed up the adoption of new technologies and support police forces to improve their productivity. This should include setting out: a. the digital technologies with the greatest potential and how it is supporting their wider adoption; b. how it will support the College of Policing to identify innovations with the greatest potential; c. how it will simplify the arrangements for approving and rolling-out new technologies; and d. the results of using the new diagnostic tool to assess the scope for productivity improvements from streamlining police processes, including the potential benefits identi Show less

Government Response Summary

The government agrees and is accelerating the adoption of new technologies by supporting the College of Policing, prioritising key digital technologies like AI and data analytics, and scaling productivity-enabling systems nationally. It will consider further recommendations as part of implementing force mergers.

HM Treasury

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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 … Read more 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 Show less

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.

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7 Accepted

Fragmented police data hinders understanding of financial risks and impact on productivity.

Recommendation

We asked the Home Office whether it has the data it needs to understand the financial risks facing police forces and the impact that this has on police productivity.9 The Home Office said there are multiple datasets scattered across bodies … Read more

Government Response Summary

The Home Office will write to the Committee by July 2026 setting out the key metrics it will incorporate in future iterations of the Police Performance Framework, and plans for public reporting of performance data.

HM Treasury

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8 Accepted

Home Office shifts to stronger central role in monitoring police force performance.

Recommendation

In 2015, our predecessor Committee concluded that the Home Office’s “hands off” approach to monitoring police forces had limited its ability to ensure value for money.13 The Home Office told us it is now adopting a stronger central role and … Read more

Government Response Summary

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9 Accepted

Absence of a police productivity measure hinders assessment and hides performance decline.

Recommendation

Written evidence from Leapwise raised the importance of having a measure of police productivity to assess and reward police forces. It noted that the absence of such a measure has meant that the current decline in police productivity is hidden.18 … Read more

Government Response Summary

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10 Accepted

Home Office plans to publish police performance data, but specifics remain undetermined.

Recommendation

We asked the Home Office about its plans for publishing data on the performance of police forces. Written evidence from The Productivity Institute highlighted that ‘public trust’ is an important productivity outcome.20 The College of Policing agreed that the antidote … Read more

Government Response Summary

The government has published the first iteration of the Police Performance Framework and will write to the Committee by July 2026 setting out the key metrics it will incorporate in future iterations and plans for public reporting of performance data to support greater transparency.

HM Treasury

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19 Accepted

Police Efficiency Programme faces high risks, legislative hurdles, and unestablished funding.

Recommendation

The Labour Party manifesto set out that the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee would be paid for by tackling waste through a Police Efficiency and Collaboration Programme.44 The Home Office has identified efficiency savings of £354 million over the period 2025–26 to … Read more

Government Response Summary

The Police Efficiency and Collaboration Programme (PECP) has an annual cashable efficiencies target of £354 million by 2028-29 and a non-cashable efficiencies target of saving thousands of officer hours to support government priorities such as neighbourhood policing.

HM Treasury

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20 Accepted

Lack of standardisation across police forces impedes national procurement efficiency and savings.

Recommendation

The Home Office told us that about that half of the planned £354 million of savings will come from commercial savings, such as national purchasing, with the remainder from cost recovery and improved productivity.48 We asked whether there has been … Read more

Government Response Summary

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Conclusions (3)

Observations and findings

15 Conclusion Accepted

A number of stakeholders identified that the officer maintenance grant has led to police forces increasingly using officers in staff roles (that do not require a warranted police officer) – an expensive and inefficient practice.34 In written evidence, Leapwise estimated that this practice is costing policing at least £55 million …

Government Response Summary

The officer maintenance grant and the requirement to achieve officer headcount targets has been abolished from 1 April 2026, and has allocated £363 million of ringfenced funding to incentivise forces to grow neighbourhood policing teams towards the aim of 13,000 additional personnel in neighbourhood roles across England and Wales by the end of this Parliament.

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18 Conclusion Accepted

Written evidence from Leapwise, Sir Stephen House and the City of London Police all highlighted how an inflexible workforce model can undermine police productivity.42 Leapwise highlighted how poor workforce wellbeing is reducing workforce capacity, identifying that the proportion of police officers on long-term sick leave has increased from 1.5% in …

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24 Conclusion Accepted

There are many examples of police forces exploiting innovative technologies, including audio-visual multimedia redaction, live facial recognition and enhanced video response.62 These technologies can help to improve police productivity and performance. For example, the College of Policing estimated that scaling the use of enhanced video response could save up to …

Government Response Summary

The government agrees that it is working to accelerate the adoption of new technologies to improve police productivity by providing financial and practical support to the College of Policing and its Centre for Police Productivity and investing in new secure national infrastructure.

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