Despite Departmental budget allocations being issued on 28 February 2019, the PSNI allocation is not expected to be confirmed by the Department of Justice until 8 March 2019.
If there is no increase in baseline funding, PSNI has estimated a funding shortfall of £20.6m (or 3% of the opening budget) simply to enable current service levels to be maintained into 2019-20. It is important to note that this estimate does not include provision for investing in priority areas or some potentially significant liabilities including increased pension costs and legal claims.
Budget cuts over recent years have focused on reducing support costs to minimum levels and it is recognised that in some areas more investment is now required to keep pace with developments in policing.
Therefore, with many support costs already under funded and contractually committed, it is highly likely that a significant funding gap will necessitate further reductions to officer and staff numbers.
In addition, a number of other areas are currently under consideration, including:
- Review of officer/staff mix across different roles within the organisation;
- Increase in apprenticeship/graduate schemes to maintain staff numbers;
- Possibility of reduced use of managed services;
- Reduction in overtime costs;
- Collaboration with external partners to reduce demand/costs;
- Capital projects which could reduce revenue costs.
However, as many of the impacts of such reductions are interlinked, it is difficult to make decisions until the final budget allocation is known.
PSNI is committed to presenting detailed budget proposals to the Board as soon as possible, following communication of a final budget settlement.