Federation calls for proper investment into policing ahead of the Spending Review next month

HAMPSHIRE Police Federation has called for proper investment in policing ahead of the Comprehensive Spending Review next month.

Zoë Wakefield, Hampshire Police Federation Chair, said: “We want to see a proper plan for some big investment in policing. We need investment in recruitment, investment in training more detectives, investment in proper IT to make it easier for officers to do their job.

“We know the IT exists out there in the private sector, but we’re always ten years behind. So we just need some real investment in policing so that we can get the police service that we all want.”

Chancellor of the exchequer Rishi Sunak will unveil the autumn budget and spending review on 27 October.

While the recruitment of 20,000 officers has been welcomed, the service needs the infrastructure to back it up, Zoë said as she called for “long-term thinking” in the next budget round.

She added: “We need to get the numbers back up to beyond where they were when the cuts began and we’re still nowhere near that, nowhere even near getting close to that number. We also need to see some proper investment as well in some of the more specialist areas of policing that didn’t exist 10 years ago like all around cybercrime and social media, online fraud and all those aspects. We don’t need a ‘Here’s 20,000 cops. Here you go’.  We need a proper, long-term plan.”