On 19th December 2024, the Government announced that, as part of next year’s national police funding settlement, they would grant an extra £5.5 million to Suffolk, marking an increase of 5.6% from 2023-24. Overall, our county’s policing budget could rise by nearly £10 million; an increase of 5.7%.
Keeping our country safe is the first duty of any government, but I know that many people in Ipswich and Suffolk want more visible policing. That’s no criticism of our hard-working force in Suffolk, but they need more resources to get boots on the ground in our local communities.
This extra funding comes as part of the government’s ‘Safer Streets’ mission, which aims to recruit and redeploy more neighbourhood police and PCSOs, so we can tackle the issues that matter most to people here in Ipswich; from violence against women and girls, to knife crime, to anti-social behaviour and increasing public confidence in policing.
Suffolk will also be able to benefit from the Government’s multi-million-pound commitment to tackling county lines crime, as well as an enormous increase in funding for counter-terrorism policing from £140 million to £1.2 billion. Further settlements for national arms-length bodies, such as those tackling cyber-crime, violence against women and girls, and fraud will be announced as part of the Home Office’s wider funding arrangements process.
I will continue to urge the Government to ensure that police funding better recognises the multi-faceted problems we face here in Ipswich and Suffolk; but, nonetheless, this significant boost is very much welcome.
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