Devon and Cornwall gets raw deal on police funding

11.55.00pm GMT Fri 5th Mar 2010

Devon and Cornwall Police must get a better deal, with more money and more officers

Police in the far South West are "being left hamstrung" in their fight against crime by poor funding settlements, according to local Liberal Democrats. This follows the revelation that Devon and Cornwall Police are receiving substantially less funding per resident than the vast majority of other forces in England and Wales.

The figures for the last financial year, which were released recently in Parliament, reveal that the force, which polices the two counties and the Isles of Scilly, received just £160 per resident. This placed it 36th in a league table of forces, with a fifth less money per resident than the national average of £200.

Six forces got more than the £200 national average. They were Greater Manchester (£212), Merseyside (£235), West Midlands (£209), Gwent (£201), as well as both of the capital's forces, the Met (£342) and the small City of London force in the Square Mile (£6,412 per resident).

Commenting, Stuart Bonar, the Lib Dem prospective parliamentary candidate for Plymouth Moor View, said, "It angers me, as I am sure it angers everyone else, that under Labour the South West gets such a poor deal. We already know that Plymouth gets a raw deal on education funding, with less per pupil than most of the rest of the country. Now we know we get a raw deal on police funding too, with the local force being left hamstrung in its fight against crime.

"Money will be tight in the coming years, but one way to boost police budgets would be to scrap ID cards. The Lib Dems would ensure that the money Labour wants to waste on useless pieces of plastic would instead be spent on more officers. The cash saved could pay for thousands more officers.

"Longer term, there has to be a long, hard look at how money is divided up across the country. I have had enough of the South West always being treated as the poor relation."