Police and Crime Commissioner Budget Survey 2023/2024

I have set up this short survey so you can tell me about your priorities for the next police budget, and so I can get your views on the part of your Council Tax that funds your police service – The police precept.Individuals, families, businesses and public bodies are all facing varying degrees of financial challenges with the cost of living and providing essential services, and the police are no different. It’s my job as Commissioner to set the police budget to ensure your police service protects you, and that’s why it’s important for me to get your views.

While government funding for Cheshire Constabulary will increase, inflation has added nearly £14 million to our costs. This leaves us with a funding gap.

In everyday life, that means people have frank conversations about what they can and can’t afford. Before asking for your views on paying more, you would expect us to do the same. In the police we have been having that conversation too, and through a rigorous review of budgets and efficiency savings, together with the use of reserves, we have already closed the funding gap by £6.7 million.

But there is still a gap.

One option available to me to close the rest of this gap is to increase the police precept by £15 per year for a Band D household – £1.25 per month. At 6.4%, this is below the current rate of inflation. If you are in Bands A-C you would pay less than this, and Bands E-H would pay more.

To be up front, if the budget I set does not include more from the police precept, then we will have to look at other ways to close the gap and these would impact the service you receive.

Your money really does make a difference. With your support through the police precept, we’ve been able to:

• Recruit more call handlers and more than halve 101 average waiting times, from over 17 minutes in Summer 2021 to around five and a half minutes now.
• Cut the average time it takes to attend emergencies to less than 10 minutes and reduce the average attendance time for prompt non-emergencies by a third.
• Increase the number of arrests made by 35% over the past year.
• Maintain our 122 community policing model, where each of Cheshire’s communities is allocated its own dedicated police team.

We also now have more officers in Cheshire than we have ever had since the current force area was established in the 1970s, and I am confident that with your support we can continue to make Cheshire even safer. Please have your say.

John Dwyer
Police and Crime Commissioner for Cheshire