Andy Burnham has been accused of ‘blaming the public’ for Greater Manchester Police's (GMP) performance amid plans to increase the force’s funds via council tax.
Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) has launched a survey on funding for GMP, which asks residents if they would be willing to pay more towards the police precept (a stream of council tax funding paid to the police which makes up 25 per cent of their total funding). The other 75 per cent comes from a grant from central government, which GMCA said is “a 1.5 per cent below inflation policing grant in real terms to Greater Manchester”.
The survey claims the precept in Greater Manchester is “one of the lowest in the country” and that if the funding is not increased there could be “cuts to the service that you receive”.
GMCA is proposing an increase of £10.11 per year (84 pence a month) for band B properties. For a band D property, the increase would be by £13 per year (or £1.08 a month). Around 80 per cent of households in Greater Manchester are in bands A-C.
Councillor Adam Kealey, of Salford Conservatives, said “blaming” residents for the performance of GMP is “completely inappropriate” and called for the consultation to be ditched.
He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “This is completely inappropriate for the Mayor to suggest. Increasing the precept or blaming residents for failures is a regressive step in what were positive signs of improvement.
“The inability of the police to perform duties is in no way the fault of residents who want to keep more of their earnings but the poor leadership of the Mayor of Greater Manchester, who acts as the Police and Crime Commissioner.
“The Mayor should retract this clearly biased survey which seeks to blame the resident for any problems with the police. He should take ownership of the police by putting more of them on the street and solving crimes, not by blaming the public when things don’t go his way.”
If the plans are approved, GMCA said it would provide a cash boost of £10.5 million to GMP, allowing it to fund 30 more police officers, improve response times for emergency and non-emergency incidents, and invest in locking up more criminals among other benefits.
The survey has been signed by both the Mayor and Kate Green, deputy mayor for policing, crime, criminal justice and fire.
A spokesperson for GMCA said: “Three-quarters of police funding comes from a central government grant. The government’s proposed increase for this grant for the coming year is below inflation at 1.5 percent, leaving a shortfall in the funding required and a need to rely on our ability to raise a precept through council tax.
“There is a legal requirement to consult the public on the precept. All responses to the consultation will be considered prior to any decisions being taken on the implementation of the precept.”
The final precept is scrutinised by the Greater Manchester Police, Fire and Crime Panel which is made up of councillors from each of the 10 councils and is chaired by a councillor.
Mr Burnham has also proposed to freeze the Mayor’s council tax precept for the financial year 2024/25 to ease ongoing cost-of-living pressures on residents.
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