‘The police are the public and the public are the police’, the now iconic paraphrased quote by the architect of the British police force Sir Robert Peel lays the basis for the key role of the police, an essential part of the collective (Lentz and Chaires, 2007). Since its founding in the early 1800s, the British police have played a vital role in holding together the fabric of society and have strived for ‘community welfare and existence’ (Pritchard, 2010). The funding of the police has long been derived from a combination of government funding alongside local taxation, which, in theory, provides sufficient resources to the police to achieve their aims. However, in the 21st century, these systems are showing signs of their age. In spite of continued increases in police funding overall, the distribution of these finances is vastly uneven. Within the forty-three territorial police forces in England and Wales, there are funding disparities between the regions that undermine public safety, efficiency, and fairness. The current model that divides the amount of funding is outdated and dramatically advantages certain areas above others. This piece discusses these issues and how they may be addressed through policy recommendations.

The Current Funding Landscape

There are three main components to police funding in England and Wales. The primary source of funding comes from central government grants, providing around 60-70%, alongside local council tax precepts making up the majority of the rest (Home Office, 2025b). The smallest contributor are the additional specific grants, such as in the uplift programmes. Overall, the total funding of the police has risen annually, going from ?17.4 billion in 2025-26 to ?19.5 billion in 2026-27 (Home Office, 2024; Home Office, 2025a). However, over time, the proportion of the money coming from police precepts has risen greatly. In order to decide how much each regional force receives, there is a funding formula that the Home Office uses to systematically distribute proportional resources. This formula is based around the particular population, demographics, social indicators, and environmental factors of the area to estimate policing demands. In theory, this is a good system. Yet the current formula has faced criticism as being outdated, having not been updated for over a decade, and insufficient in reflecting changes to the evolving types of crime such as in cybercrime (Allen and Mansfield, 2023).

The Problem: Uneven Regional Funding

The issues of uneven police funding can be placed at the feet of the combination of an overreliance on the local tax base along with an outdated national funding formula. In regard to the former, the problem occurs due to wealthier regions being able to raise more funding through the local tax precepts. The southeast of England has long been able generate more financing than much of the north. This has resulted in poorer regions, which typically have higher policing demands, not being able to raise the equivalent local funds of their southern counterparts. In urban and deprived areas, especially in the north of England, this leads forces to struggle to match funding needs. This also affects rural policing as these larger areas must consider costs around transport and the spreading of resources. The consequence of this is that the majority of the funding must come from central government grants.

However, the formula for these grants is itself flawed and insufficient. As previously mentioned, it faces criticism of being outdated and not fully reflective of modern policing demands. It does not fully consider key factors such as organised crime prevalence, night-time economy policing, or seasonal population increases through tourism. Furthermore, the police are increasingly required to manage non-crime issues, such as in social care and mental health concerns, which contribute to uneven stretching of police resources. Thus, it would be pertinent to evolve the formula in a way that acknowledges and allows for these factors.

The consequence of these two issues is that regions are receiving vastly different amounts of funding, mostly due to population, in spite of other pressures. For instance, London receives the highest amount of funding with approximately ?276 per person in 2019-20 yet Lincolnshire only received around ?159 per person in the same period (Ogden et al., 2022, P. 15). This has contributed to some forces currently facing large budget gaps reaching into the hundreds of millions in certain urban constabularies, with the police sector as a whole is predicting ?1billion in shortfalls by next year (UNISON, 2026).

The structural and human costs of these pressures is immense. It includes:

• Unequal officer numbers and the resulting lowered service capacity
• Variation in response times and the resulting lowered service quality
• Potential increases in crime levels due to these
• Lower direct community engagement from a lack of resources
• Increased workload pressure on officers due to overextended manpower

Policy Recommendations

To address these concerns, it is important to consider a multi-facetted approach to reforming the police funding system. This would include a direct reformation of the weighting of the formula, a shift to multi-year settlements, and the implementation of incentives for striving for efficiency and collaboration. To start, a full review of the formula should be conducted that aims to move it away from a largely population-focused one towards one that accounts for other demands. This may include crime rates, crime complexity (such as in cybercrime), socio-economic deprivation, and seasonal population changes. Through this, the formula can be further weighted to allow for higher funding to areas with higher demands. Secondly, the introduction of multi-year payments, opposed to annually, would allow police forces to benefit from better long-term workforce planning, more stable investment opportunities, and reduction in uncertainties around resource availability. Finally, direct incentives for efficiency and collaboration, such as in sharing services to reduce duplication, would help to encourage smarter allocation of resources away from just money. This could involve rewarding forces who implement strategies that reduce the costs of policing such as in early prevention programmes, community policing strategies, and in modernising digital systems. In combination, these policies would give more funding to forces that require it more, allow for better management of the finances, and encourage cost-effective policing.

Conclusion

To conclude, the police funding system in England is in dire need of reformation to account for the individual needs of the regions and it is ill equipped to manage the contemporary patterns of demand. Raising issues of inequalities between the forces, this results in certain regions struggling to maintain current policing activities leading to geographic inequalities in public safety. Therefore, through reforming the funding formula, it will be possible to promote fairness of financing and effectiveness of the police in protecting the public.

Bibliography

Allen, G., and Mansfield, Z., 2023, 'Motion to approve the Police Grant Report (England and Wales) 2023/24', Commons Library Debate Pack, House of Commons Library, Available at:

Home Office, 2024, 'Provisional Police Grant Report (England and Wales) 2025-26', UK Parliament, Available at:

Home Office, 2025a, 'Provisional Police Funding Settlement (England and Wales) 2026-27', UK Parliament, Available at:

Home Office, 2025b, 'Police funding for England and Wales: user guide', GOV.UK, Available at:

Lentz, S. A., and Chaires, R. H., 2007, 'The invention of Peel's principles: A study of policing ‘textbook’ history', Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol. 35, Issue. 1, Pp. 69-79.

Ogden et al., 2022, 'Does funding follow need? An analysis of the geographic distribution of public spending in England', IFS Report R224, lnstitute for Fiscal Studies, Available at:

Pritchard, M., 2010, 'Police (Public Trust)', Vol. 516, UK Parliament, Available at:

UNISON, 2026, 'Police Force Shortfalls 2025/26', UNISON, Available at:

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