Would you pay £10 extra per year for Dorset Police?
The force is asking for a bigger portion of our council tax next year.
We're being asked if we would pay an extra £10 per year to help maintain and improve Dorset Police.
Dorset’s Police & Crime Commissioner is asking members of the public for their views on paying an extra 83p per month. If approved, the figure would see those living in a Band D property paying an additional £10 a year for policing the county.
Each police force is funded in the same way, a combination of funding from precept and a government grant.
The majority of government grant increase received in 2022/23 is expected to be focussed on delivery of the government’s manifesto pledge to deliver 20,000 officers nationally. This will enable the police force to enhance some of its services to the public and increase visibility within the community.
However, it will not cover unavoidable cost increases such as inflationary pressures, which are particularly high at the moment, and the costs that enable the recruitment of those new officers, such as training, equipment, vehicles and changes to the buildings that those officers will use.
Such costs will have to be met primarily from local council tax, because, if they are not, reductions in service will be required which will significantly reduce the impact of the incoming officers within our communities.
Police & Crime Commissioner David Sidwick said:
“I made a promise to be transparent on funding and so I have set out online and in the survey what the precept funding will be spent on.
“I want to be able to give Dorset a new County Lines Task Force, to put more officers in the Rural Crime Team, to improve the 101 and emergency response service, to provide community police surgeries and ‘pop-up’ community hubs – but I cannot do that without precept funding.
“I would dearly love not to have to come to you to ask for any extra money to pay for policing, but the simple truth is that if I am to deliver on the priorities you told me were important to you, then I will need every one of those 83 pennies”
“I want this county, our county, the county we all love, to be the safest place to be in England and Wales but to do that I will need to make sure the Force is adequately funded and so that’s why I am asking for your support when it comes to the precept increase.”