Dorset Police set to receive £9.3 million cash uplift

Next year Dorset Police is set to receive £9.3 million more from central government.

This comes after The Home Office published the report on Wednesday which proposes a total settlement for the policing system of up to £15.2 billion for 2020-21, which is an increase of £1,121 million compared to 2019-2020.

The report also sets out the total amount of money individual Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales will receive, with Dorset Police set to obtain a total funding increase of up to 6.86%.

This will take funding in Dorset up from £135.5 million to £144.8 million.

Office for National Statistics yesterday released figures showing that crimes reported in Dorset had risen by 2% since 2018.

The funding announcement comes after Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner Martyn Underhill spoke out about being “immensely frustrated that the financial burden has been passed to local taxpayers” in Dorset.

He added that he had to “reluctantly ask for the support of Dorset residents to raise the precept to the maximum amount set by Whitehall.”

Councillor Nigel Hedges, Wallisdown and Winton West ward for BCP reacted to the funding increase.

He said: “More police and more funding is always better than no funding, but that wouldn’t buy half a helicopter if we needed another one.

“If you do the maths and analysis £9.3 million and broke it down just into the number of wards that are the responsibility of Dorset Council and BCP Council, I should think our share in direct proportion from that would probably amount to a couple of grand as Dorset is a big place and £9 million doesn’t go very far.”