POLICE\u00a0officers have \u201cwon the argument\u201d on stretched police resources with the Government, Policing Minister Nick Hurd told this year\u2019s PFEW Conference.<\/p>\n
Recent cuts in budgets and officer numbers were perhaps not surprisingly hot topics during the Q&A session at the Police Federation of England and Wales Annual Conference<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve spoken to every force and a very clear picture has developed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI recognise that police are stretched and, in some cases, struggling and I can understand the frustration officers feel about being pulled in different directions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why we are committed to adding \u00a3460 million as a first step to police budgets this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe listened to you and you\u2019ve won the argument on stretched police resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Hurd (pictured) added that the funds would be made available from the public purse with \u00a3280 million coming from Council Tax precepts.<\/p>\n
He defended the Conservative Government\u2019s record on police funding and insisted that the economy was now in a better position than before, allowing the funds to be released even though the country still pays \u00a350 billion a year on its debts alone.<\/p>\n
Fellow panellist Louise Haigh MP acknowledged that the austerity police have had to endure meant morale amongst officers was at \u2018rock bottom.\u2019<\/p>\n
She promised a Labour Government would add \u00a3710 million to police coffers and resource 10,000 extra neighbourhood officers.<\/p>\n
PFEW Chair Calum Macleod told conference that the funding issue had been a \u2018perfect storm\u2019 for police.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeighbourhood policing has been decimated and we have to try and balance public safety and officer welfare with the resources we have.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolice officers always do their best, but it\u2019s frustrating for them especially as they know they are being seen by the public less and less.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t ultimately matter who\u2019s in power, more people are becoming victims of crime, we are breaking police officers and we need action on police funding now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several topics were covered during the session, including the use of Taser and wearable tech.<\/p>\n
Nick Hurd told delegates that he was backing the use of both.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems body warn video in particular is a real game changer,\u201d he said, \u201cand we\u2019ve got to make sure officers have the right kit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think 80,000 BWVs should be deployed in 2019 in the response to knife and violent crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
He refused to bow to calls from delegates to commit to accepting next year\u2019s police pay review recommendations without seeing the details, instead insisting he would \u2018always support\u2019 fair pay.<\/p>\n
Other topics raised included issues around police recruitment and retention, force capacity should incidents like the 2011 riots happen again, CPS funding and effectiveness and police pay and parity with other emergency service workers.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
POLICE\u00a0officers have \u201cwon the argument\u201d on stretched police resources with the Government, Policing Minister Nick Hurd told this year\u2019s PFEW Conference. Recent cuts in budgets and officer numbers were perhaps\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":476,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":477,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions\/477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lancsfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}