A police chief has warned that cuts to recruitment may be necessary to meet government targets for neighbourhood policing, raising concerns about funding pressures on frontline forces.
Paul Sanford, chief constable of Norfolk Police, said Home Office funding for “bobbies on the beat” does not fully cover the cost of employing additional officers, forcing difficult choices over recruitment.
The government has pledged to boost neighbourhood policing numbers, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirming last year that forces in England and Wales would receive funding to recruit an extra 3,000 officers. Announcing the plan, Starmer promised “bobbies on the beat and keeping people safe”, saying the policy would help “end this culture of crime that is destroying our communities”.
However, Sanford said the funding model meant recruiting neighbourhood officers would require reducing recruitment in other areas of the force.
In the first year of the scheme, Norfolk Police recruited 31 additional officers and was promised around £500,000 to fund 20 more. Sanford said this fell well short of what was needed.
“The full cost of a police officer is £68,000, that includes pay, pension, national insurance and other employment costs,” he said. “The funding we have been given for next year equates to £29,000 per officer, so that’s 42% of the actual costs.”
Sanford, who has led Norfolk Police since 2021, said the shortfall meant plans to recruit a further 16 officers in February had been delayed. He added that the force now needs to find £3m in savings to balance its budget.
He said tough decisions had already been made last year. “We used to have 10 or 12 police officers working in schools [working on] preventing crime, working with young people. We had to stop doing that to balance the budget,” he said.
Further cuts are now being considered, with Sanford confirming that spending on new technology to speed up responses to non-emergency calls has already been cancelled.
Andy Symonds, from Norfolk’s Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, said the chief constable had been put in “a tough position”. He warned officers were struggling with rising workloads, describing many as “knackered, tired, under pressure from being stretched and stretched and stretched”.
“Last year, one in nine cops took time off for mental health reasons,” he said.
The Home Office said it was investing £18.4bn nationally to support neighbourhood policing. A spokesperson said the funding was designed to move officers “out from behind desks” and back into communities, while also helping to reform a funding model based on fixed headcounts.
They added the investment would “rebuild neighbourhood policing, cut crime, and make streets safer” across England and Wales.