We are writing to confirm the details of the police funding settlement for 2024-25. Yesterday the Police Grant Report (England and Wales) 2024-25 was laid in Parliament and the Parliamentary vote is expected to take place shortly.
Following a review of all responses received, this settlement remains unchanged from that set out at the provisional police funding settlement on 14 December 2023. The 2024-25 funding settlement will provide up to £18.4 billion of funding for the policing system, an increase of up to £842.9 million when compared to 2023-24, including funding from local council tax (precept), and funding for national priorities. Assuming full take up of precept flexibility, funding available to Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) will increase by up to £922.2 million (6.0% in cash terms).
This increase is broken down as follows:
• A £624 million increase in Government grant funding to PCCs, which includes:
o £150 million announced at Spending Review 2021 to ensure the maintenance of officers recruited through the Police Uplift Programme.
o £515 million of funding to support forces with the cost of the police officer pay award of which £185 million is additional to the funding provided in-year this financial year. This was announced by the Home Office in July 2023, to be allocated through existing funding formula shares. While the formula remains under review, we do not feel it is appropriate to deviate from the way in which core funding is allocated.
o £259 million to cover the increased costs of police pensions contributions, which will be allocated using updated shares based on a proportionate average of pension contribution data from 2021-22 and 2022-23, as well as forecasted data for 2023-24 and 2024-25.
o A one-off top-up funding amount of £26.8 million to be provided in recognition of the software development and administrator costs associated with the delays to the implementation of the McCloud remedy. Any further costs will be considered at the next Spending Review.
• Up to £298 million additional funding from council tax precept, based on current forecasts and assuming all PCCs maximise their precept flexibility. PCCs have the flexibility to increase precept by up to £13 for a Band D equivalent property (for English forces), or go further should they wish by holding a local referendum. Council tax levels are a local decision and elected Police and Crime Commissioners will rightly want to consider what they are asking people to pay to fulfil their strong desire to keep our streets safe, whilst taking into consideration the pressures that many households are facing. Council tax policy is devolved in Wales, and is, therefore, a matter for Welsh Government.
Also included in this settlement are:
• £1 billion for national policing priorities, both resource and capital funding, to ensure local policing bodies and forces can address the evolving challenges of policing in the 21st Century.
• £7.4 million for the City of London Police precept grant.
• £190.2 million for the National and International Capital City (NICC) grant.
• At least £1 billion for Counter-Terrorism Policing is also included within the headline settlement. Force level funding allocations for Counter-Terrorism Policing will be confirmed separately and will not be made public for national security reasons.
Police Officer Maintenance
We fulfilled our commitment to recruit 20,000 additional police officers and this is being maintained. Thanks to the hard work of police forces, as at 30 September 2023, there are 149,164 officers (headcount) across England and Wales. There continues to be more police officers compared to the peak number that was recorded before the police uplift programme; with 3,134 more officers compared to March 2010 (146,030).
To continue supporting forces to maintain this achievement, the 2024-25 ringfence will be £425 million, to be allocated as follows:
• £67.2 million will be paid to forces who volunteered to recruit above their Uplift target as an ‘additional recruitment top-up grant’. This will be allocated based on the 1,400 additional officers agreed on 31 March 2023. The grant will be paid out in two equal instalments in April 2024 and October 2024 with no set conditions.
• The remaining £357.8 million will be ringfenced funding. Allocations will have been determined according to how much a force should receive from the total £425 million using funding formula shares. Forces’ shares of the ringfence will be paid to PCCs if they have maintained their overall officer maintenance headcount. Access to ringfence funding shares will be based upon headcount levels recorded at data collection points on 30 September 2024 and 31 March 2025, and paid in January and July 2025 following the publication of police workforce statistics.
National Priorities
This settlement provides £1 billion for national policing priorities in 2024-25 to ensure local policing bodies and forces have the resources and tools they need to address the evolving challenges of policing in the 21st Century.
The Home Office is delivering a range of Major Law Enforcement Programmes to support the modernisation of national police systems, enhancing the way forces communicate with each other and law enforcement partners to share data, intelligence, information and evidence. We are also improving the quality and the use of police data, providing national search capabilities, advanced analytics, and putting cutting edge technology in the hands of specialist officers to tackle high harm crime, such as child sexual abuse.
In this Settlement, and across wider budgets, the Home Office will directly invest in excess of £200 million in flagship crime programmes, such a Violence Reduction Units and County Lines. We are also continuing to invest in a number of other priority areas for crime reduction, including but not limited to Economic Crime, Modern Slavery and Violence against Women and Girls.
This Government has provided significant investment into policing over the previous four years, and this settlement will support the police to do their vital job to cut crime and keep people safe, whilst delivering the best possible value for the public.
Rt Hon James Cleverly MP, Home Secretary
Rt Hon Chris Philp MP, Minister of State for Crime, Policing and Fire