By stewartb

The National Audit Office (NAO, November 3, 2025) published this report: ‘Police productivity – Home Office. Report HC 1380’. (https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/police-productivity.pdf)

It is concerned with policing in England and Wales. The NAO notes that the Home Office allocates the majority of police funding for England and Wales. Why relevant to TuS and to Scotland? In common with other devolved public services, what the UK government decides on resources for policing in England and Wales impacts financial resources made available to the Scottish Government via the so-called Block Grant. And it is not only the size of the Block Grant that is impacted but also the predictability of its future size.

Whilst manageable when such issues are limited to one or a few areas of devolved responsibility, when commonplace, the budgeting and forward planning challenges for a government with restricted, devolved powers can become seriously damaging.

The NAO report includes many notable statements – as you read, imagine BBC Scotland and other MSM outlets in Scotland’s reactions if such comments were being made in an Audit Scotland report about the Scottish Government and Police Scotland.

‘Police forces are managing increasing financial pressures but, to-date, the Home Office has not fully understood the implications. In 2024-25, police forces responded to financial pressures by reducing their reserves by £276 million and borrowing £632 million to help fund capital programmes. These are short-term measures, which may affect their financial resilience in the future.‘

‘To live within budgets, police forces have also run high levels of staff vacancies, used more officers in civilian roles and reprioritised the services they provide.’

All the above are indicative of a police service under-resourced relative to demand, need and Westminster governments’ policy expectations.

And more: ‘Fully funding the government’s policing commitments while managing existing pressures will require police forces to make significant savings. ….. The Home Office and policing do not
have a shared understanding of the resource implications of changing demands.‘

And on uncertainty over near to mid-term funding settlements: ‘As at September 2025, the Home Office had not yet allocated police funding for 2026-27 to 2028-29 but the projected average annual increase in total police funding of 1.7% is likely to be absorbed by pay increases and inflationary pressures.’

And following on from the last comment on funding: ‘The Home Office is seeking to achieve efficiency savings through its Police Efficiency and Collaboration Programme to help fund the government’s policing commitments, identifying potential savings of £354 million over 2025-26 to 2028-29. However, it has not yet agreed how it will support police forces to meet the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, or the funding implications of this.’

‘The Home Office reported it had achieved efficiency savings of £220 million over 2020-21 to 2024-25 but could only provide details to support £25 million in 2020-21 and did not know whether these have been sustained.’

Despite the importance being placed on policing productivity improvements by Westminster governments, the NAO notes: ‘The Home Office has not yet established an approach to measuring police productivity. We reported in 2015 and 2018 that the Home Office had limited data and analysis of police productivity. It does not yet have an agreed definition of productivity, nor a standard methodology for measuring it.’

‘The government’s focus on maintaining officer numbers means police forces have less flexibility in how they use resources and often do not have the capabilities needed to support transformation programmes and embed new technology.’

The NAO report offers up rich pickings for a headline writer – but seemingly this report is no interest to BBC and other MSM journalists elsewhere in the UK. Unless you know different?