Police Federation of England and Wales Acting National Chair Tiff Lynch said:
“This Spending Review should have been a turning point after 15 years of austerity that has left policing – and police officers – broken. Instead, the cuts will continue, and it’s the public who will pay the price.
As rank-and-file officers kit up for night duty this evening, they’ll do so knowing exactly where they stand in the government’s priorities. It is beyond insulting for Cabinet Ministers to call on police to “do their bit” when officers are overworked, underpaid, and under threat like never before.
They are facing blades and bricks, managing mental health crises while battling to protect their own, and carrying the weight of trauma and financial stress home with them every day.
Police pay has fallen by over 20 per cent in real terms since 2010. The number of crimes allocated to each officer has jumped by a third in a decade. We will lose 10,000 experienced officers a year to resignation by the end of this spending review period – driven out by poor pay and unacceptable working conditions.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ announcement used the phrase ‘spending power’ to talk about police funding. That means that unless every police and crime commissioner in England and Wales increases their council tax precept to the maximum each and every year of this spending review period, policing will have even less.
This Chancellor hasn’t listened to police officers. She hasn’t listened to the Home Secretary. She hasn’t listened to the public’s concerns about community safety.
We await the government’s decision on police pay in the coming weeks. But with this Spending Review, the signs are deeply worrying; the consequences will be even more so. And those consequences sit squarely on the shoulders of the Chancellor and the Prime Minister.”