Arresting cost of £47K police report

Reporter: RICHARD HOOTON
Date published: 21 April 2011


GREATER Manchester Police Authority has been criticised for spending £47,000 on a publication explaining its priorities.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance says money can be saved by publicising the annual Local Policing Summary online instead.

It’s produced a table showing how much police forces spend on the summary, which is meant to let the public know how their force is doing with meeting targets and their priorities for the coming year.

GMPA posts its summary to households across Greater Manchester.

Police authorities are required by law to produce the information — though this does not dictate how it should be published.

Some authorities, such as Devon and Cornwall, publish the details on their website at no extra cost, while others, like Kent, produce a glossy magazine costing £68,000.

Thames Valley spends the most at £95,470.

A Taxpayers Alliance spokesman said: “It’s important for the police to communicate with the general public, but it doesn’t need to be at such expense.

“These summaries should be published on the web, to make savings that do not affect the frontline.

“At the same time, police authorities should not produce any kind of vanity publications.”

More than £1million was spent on local policing summaries across the country, which the alliance calculates would pay for the employment of 22 police officers at £50,000 a year.

GMPA executive director Russell Bernstein defended the amount spent saying that the authority tried to minimise the cost but as one of the larger police authorities these were going to be larger than most.

He added: “You run the risk of criticism that says it’s got to be accessible to everyone and we have tried to balance it up.

“It’s a statutory requirement and in our judgement we need to get it out to as many people as we can.”