DORSET’S police precept is being discussed today and could be frozen for the next year.

Members of the Police and Crime Panel will be told at a meeting this morning that there remains ‘great uncertainty’ over the future of funding because of changes in government and National Insurance policy.

Watch a live webcast of the police precept meeting here.

On Monday the Echo told how a ‘cliff edge’ of funding exists for 2016/17.

But Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Martyn Underhill wants to freeze council tax and take a government grant of £574,000 for the coming financial year.

It is one of three options to be considered by the panel today. The others are:

  • to raise council tax by up to two percent, adding £514,000 to the base budget per one per cent rise.
  • to raise council tax by more than two per cent, triggering a referendum which would cost around £1 million.

A report on the precept says the 2015/16 budget has been ‘balanced’ and taking the freeze for one year would ‘allow officer numbers to be maintained at the level to which they have been increased in 2014/15’.

However, National Insurance will be ‘an additional cost pressure on top of any further grant losses, currently estimated at 3.5 per cent per annum’ and means Dorset is facing a ‘cliff edge’ for 2016/17.

This is due to the introduction of the Single State Pension. Current discounts in National Insurance rates applied to occupational pension schemes will be removed from 2016/17 onwards, adding around £2 million to NI costs for the force.

In light of this, the option of raising the precept by two per cent and increasing officer numbers now ‘was considered’ but ‘it was not deemed to be a prudent policy, knowing that this cliff edge is ahead and not having the ability to make police officers redundant’.

But according to the report, nearly half of Dorset’s residents would support an increase of more than two per cent.

The Police and Crime Panel will be told that there is ‘great uncertainty’ over future levels of funding because it is possible that the next government could take freeze grants out of the funding baseline.

In the report, treasurer to the PCC Richard Bates, who is also Dorset County Council’s chief financial officer, says: “A conservative estimate would be that further savings of £8m to £12m will still be required over the next few years.”

In public consultation

  • 29% of residents supported a freeze.
  • 15% supported an increase of £2 (around one per cent).
  • 25% supported an increase of £4 (around two per cent).
  • 19% supported an increase of five percent
  • Nine percent support an increase of more than five percent
  • Three percent wanted to lower the precept