Decision 2022/23-26: Police Precept Proposal 2023-24 - Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner

Legislation requires that the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) agrees their budget and
associated precept and basic council tax for the forthcoming year before 1st March each year.

However, before doing so the PCC must notify the relevant Police and Crime Panel, by the 31st
January, of the precept which they propose to issue for the following financial year.

The Police Settlement for 2023/24 has provided the PCC with almost £115.5m of Government
funding for 2023/24, an increase of £2.0m or 1.8% from the year before.

This funding includes a Ring-fenced Grant for maintaining Police Officer numbers of £3.3m.

Considering all projected changes in income, other than from a Precept increase, then the
overall forecast increase in income is expected to be £6m.

Some of this increased funding is ring-fenced for the following and comes with corresponding
additional costs:

£1.2m has been specifically provided for year 2 of the Violence Reduction Unit
£0.6m has been provided for additional victim’s services and safer streets
£0.5m for serious violence hotspot work
£0.3m is an increase in our ring-fenced Special Grant work

The remaining £3.4m needs to cover the following additional costs of £9.8m:

£4.7m for pay inflation
£1.7m to increase Police Officer numbers
£3.4m for non-pay inflation

This takes the overall costs increases and pressures to £12.4m versus £6m of income before
precept is considered. So, a gap of £6.4m

Each £1 increase in the precept in Cleveland provides just over £160k of additional precept
income on a recurring basis – so just over £2.4m per year of additional income would be
generated if the precept was increased by the maximum amount allowed of £15.

As such a precept increase of £15 in proposed.

To mitigate the remaining £4.0m shortfall in 2023/24 the following is proposed: