Police precept in South Yorkshire to increase by more than five percent – adding £13 to average annual bill

The increase was agreed during a meeting of the police and crime panel this morning (February 6).

The increase is needed to make up the budget for South Yorkshire Police – a report to the panel states that the government funds 74 per cent of the budget, with the remaining 26 per cent – £93.6m – made up through the council tax precept.

If the precept is raised by less than 5.4 per cent, the budget will fall short – and the report adds that a £7.3m deficit will need to come from police reserves.

South Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner Dr Alan Billings said that this year’s budget is his ‘swan song’, as his duties will be transferred to Oliver Coppard, South Yorkshire mayor this year.

Dr Billings added that he was ‘disappointed’ that a special grant which funded 80 per cent of the force’s legacy issues would drop to 50 per cent – which will cost the force another £6.6m.

South Yorkshire Police’s legacy costs include civil claims arising from the Hillsborough football disaster of 1989 and compensation for victims of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham whom the police failed.

This year the cost of legacy issues is anticipated to be £7.3m.

“I’m still having to ask the police force to make savings this year, and to make even bigger savings over the longer term,” Dr Billings told the meeting,

“I’m always very concerned obviously about the impact all this has on the finances have on the people of South Yorkshire and their ability to pay, and we know that lots of people are struggling.”

The report added that the increase is necessary to ‘recruit, train and maintain the full number of officers assumed in the police grant settlement’.

"There are, however, multiple areas in which offending is predicted to increase, with increased demand specifically expected around vulnerability, the digital arena, economic crime and fraud, neighbourhood crime and illegal drugs,” it adds.