Police force to cost extra 1p a day
10:10am Sunday 12th February 2012 in News
LANCASHIRE Police Authority has agreed to increase the amount of council tax invested in policing by a penny a day.
Members of the authority agreed not to accept a one-off grant from the Government to freeze next year’s precept as they believed that this would have exposed the force to financial risk in future years.
As a result of the authority’s decision, the 2012-13 council tax policing precept will be increased by 2.5 per cent.
This equates to an extra 1p per day for an average Band D property, or £3.66 a year. The move means that the authority will receive an additional £1.7 million this year. Although the Government’s grant would have given what looked like an attractive windfall of £2 million, that was for this year only, a spokesman said.
Chief Constable Steve Finnigan said the force, which has had to find £39 million of cuts, would still be left with a £4 million finding gap.
