Cambridgeshire Police seeks to lobby for increased funding after missing out due to current 'underlying unfairness'

The comments comes from a report produced by the office of Darryl Preston ahead of December’s budget announcement.

On December 17, central government is due to announce police funding for 2026/27, at which point it is the commissioner’s job to set the local percept.

The report states that it is anticipated that this will be another ‘very challenging economic climate’ and among the challenges the force will have to deal with- as announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review- is a pay award of 4.2%, adding around £4.1m to the annual budget, but only around £3.8m of this being funded by the government due to the funding formula.

Excluding the impact of pay awards, the constabulary estimates that inflationary pressure of 2.8% will be experienced in 2026/27.

The reports states that “it is anticipated that it will be challenging to set a balanced budget” and that part of that is due to the fact that “opportunities for further efficiencies, without a sacrifice in service, are becoming increasingly difficult to identify.”

At the heart of the issue, the constabulary insists is that a change in the funding formula is required to address the shortcomings, including the unfunded population growth in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

Statistics show that since 2022 Cambridgeshire’s population has risen year-on-year from 908k to 934k, while the percentage increase in its budget each year has fallen from 1.6% to 1.3%.

The report states that: “The lack of population updates exacerbates the underlying unfairness of the funding formula, and with our population forecast to increase to 1.078m residents by 2041, we will continue to fall further behind on our funding needs without a change in methodology.

To put this into context, we require an additional 17 officers every year to 2041 to maintain an existing level of service.”

Key stats

- Cambridgeshire Police is the fourth lowest funded police force in the country (total funding)

- The force has a total funding figure of £233 per head for every person living in the county. The national average is £267.

- The fore would have 103 fewer (1,617) fewer officers if it had the average number of officers per million of total funding received.

Police officer costs are 49% (£98m) of the budget. In 2024/25 these costs accounted for 47% (£90m) of the budget.

Police staff costs accounted for 17% (£33m). This excludes the funding of Bedfordshire Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire collaborated services which were a further £43m (21%) of total costs.

Compared to the national average, Cambridgeshire already has a lower ratio of police staff to police officers. Police staff undertake direct “policing” functions (e.g. PCSOs, call handlers, intelligence staff, vetting staff, detention officers and scenes of crime officers) as well as the more generic organisational support functions (e.g. recruitment, learning and development, ICT, finance, estates).

Part of the reason for this relatively low number of police staff is that through the years of austerity, Cambridgeshire protected police officer numbers. Therefore, c.£179m of the budget or 89% is made up of employee costs.

Transport costs is 1.4% (£2.7m) of the budget. The force has said that it needs to consider options for a greener fleet for the future but that will be more expensive than its current fleet.

The report will be presented in full to Peterborough City Council’s Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Panel on Wednesday (November 26).