OPCC brings in Treasury partnership to indentify efficiencies

Devon and Cornwall’s Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Hogg has called in Government backed partnership Local Policing and Partnerships (LP&P) to support the joint review by Devon and Cornwall Police and the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner into how further efficiency savings can be found to help protect frontline policing.

Local Policing and Partnerships (LP&P) – which is owned jointly by her Majesty’s Treasury and the Local Government Association – will spend time over the next month working with the OPCC and the Force as they try to identify a further £12m a year funding reduction. The contract is worth around £20,000.

“Policing budgets are being continually squeezed,” said OPCC chief executive Andrew White.

“Devon and Cornwall has already managed to find £40m cost savings but, by careful financial management, Tony Hogg has managed to maintain police numbers over 3,000, significantly higher than planned by the Police Authority.

“But now policing in the peninsula faces further reductions of £12m a year by 2017-18.  The Commissioner’s guarantee on police officers is unbreakable but we now need to look to the longer term to ensure that officer numbers can be maintained beyond 2018.

“We are currently developing a financial roadmap which will help us to identify how to achieve that while doing everything to protect policing services.

“LP&P are experts in finding further efficiencies which can be introduced into the financial roadmap.  They have worked with many other police forces across the country and have significant expertise in how to drive down costs.

“The price of the contract is small in relation to the benefits of getting this important stage of financial planning right at the outset.

“LP&P have expertise and experience that neither the police nor the OPCC possess, by engaging them for this initial piece of work it will help us target our efforts over the coming months and years to achieve maximum benefit.”