UK Inquiry Tracker

Increasing police productivity

Public Accounts Committee Open Inquiry

Opened: 10 Jul 2025 Parliament page

Total police funding in 2025-26 is £19.6bn, with approx. 70% of this made up of central government funding and the rest raised through council tax. Government is aiming to put 13,000 additional police officers, police community support officers and special constables into neighbourhood policing roles, paid for by tackling waste … Read more Total police funding in 2025-26 is £19.6bn, with approx. 70% of this made up of central government funding and the rest raised through council tax. Government is aiming to put 13,000 additional police officers, police community support officers and special constables into neighbourhood policing roles, paid for by tackling waste through a programme of reform. This includes plans to centralise functions such as procurement and vetting, and greater use of technology to make officers more productive. The PAC’s 2018 report on the financial sustainability of police forces in England and Wales warned that financial pressures were undermining confidence in the police, which the report found had been severely dented as forces reprioritised work in response to funding cuts. The Committee’s subsequent 2022 report highlighted significant challenges for the Home Office in realising a promised uplift in police numbers. The National Audit Office (NAO) reports in 2025 on police productivity, with a focus on the Home Office’s approach to supporting police forces to improve. Following the NAO’s report, the PAC will take evidence from senior Home Office officials, with likely topics for scrutiny including current financial constraints facing police forces, and how the Home Office is supporting forces to deliver value for money from funding. If you have evidence on these issues, please submit here by 23:59 on Monday 10 November 2025. Please look at the requirements for written evidence submissions and note that the Committee cannot accept material as evidence that is published elsewhere. You can request anonymity or confidentiality when you send evidence, but it is the Committee which decides what information to publish and how. It may treat submissions confidentially, even where you have not requested this. Please note that the Committee’s inquiry cannot assist with individual cases. If you need help with an individual problem you are having, you may wish to read the information on Parliament’s website about who you can contact with different issues . Show less

18 Recommendations

12 Conclusions

1 Report

1 Oral session

4 Letters

1 Event

Activity timeline 8 events

7 Apr
2026

Report published

Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Sixty-third report from Session 2024-26

12 Mar
2026

Correspondence

Letter from the Acting Permanent Secretary at the Home Office relating to the Committee’s inquiry into Increasing police productivity, 04 M…

23 Feb
2026

Correspondence

Letter from the Chief Executive Officer of the College of Policing relating to a follow-up to the Committee’s evidence session on 24 Novemb…

28 Jan
2026

Report published

63rd Report - Increasing police productivity

8 Jan
2026

Correspondence

Letter from the Second Permanent Secretary at the Home Office relating to the Committee’s evidence session on 24 November 2025 on Increasin…

15 Dec
2025

Correspondence

Letter from the Chief Executive Officer at The College of Policing relating to the Committee’s evidence session on 24 November 2025 on Incr…

24 Nov
2025

Oral evidence

Oral evidence session

24 Nov
2025

Formal meeting (oral evidence session) · The Grimond Room, Portcullis House

Committee event

Oral evidence sessions 1 session

24 Nov 2025

View on parliament.uk

Bethan Page-Jones · Home Office Dame Antonia Romeo DCB · Ministry of Justice James Bottomley · College of Policing Richard Clarke · Home Office Sir Andy Marsh QPM · College of Policing

Reports 1 report · click to expand

Title	HC No.	Published	Items	Response
63rd Report - Increasing police productivity	HC 1239	28 Jan 2026	30	Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

3 results

25 Recommendation Deferred

63rd Report - Increasing police pr…

Slow scaling of police innovation hindered by funding cuts and a crowded delivery landscape.

Despite these opportunities, scaling innovation and new technologies across the 43 police forces in England and Wales has been slow. The Home Office and College of Policing acknowledged the lack of speed and told us that scale-up was the biggest … Read more

Government Response

The government agrees to provide an update in July 2027 on the steps taken to speed up the adoption of new technologies and support police forces to improve their productivity, including the technologies with the greatest potential, support for the College of Policing, simplifying arrangements for rolling out new technologies, and results from the diagnostic tool.

HM Treasury

View details

26 Recommendation Deferred

63rd Report - Increasing police pr…

Police forces face significant funding constraints for IT system improvements and new technology.

We asked if police forces had sufficient funding to improve their IT systems,71 particularly given the financial pressures they are facing, which has led them to increase borrowing to fund capital programmes.72 Forces also spend around 80% of their funding … Read more

Government Response

The government agrees and sets a target implementation date of December 2029, noting that the National Police Service will consider these recommendations further once established; meanwhile, the Home Office is working closely with policing to modernise IT systems and is addressing concerns through work on national data standards and programmes upgrading legacy technology.

HM Treasury

View details

29 Conclusion Deferred

63rd Report - Increasing police pr…

Outdated police funding formula creates structural gaps for forces amid demographic changes since 2015.

In its 2015 report on the financial sustainability of police forces, our predecessor Committee recommended that a new police funding formula be introduced in 2016–17.80 In our evidence session, we asked whether changing demographics meant the out-of-date formula had led … Read more

Government Response

The Home Office will review the police funding formula once the implementation of police reform is underway and will launch an independent review into police force structures to consider the right model for local policing, which will report in the summer.

HM Treasury

View details

Government Response AI assessment · 30 of 18 classified

Accepted 14

Accepted in Part 1

Acknowledged 11

Deferred 3

Not Addressed 1

Total 18 recs + 12 conclusions

Correspondence 4 letters

12 Mar 2026 To committee Letter from the Acting Permanent Secretary at the Home Office relating to the Committee’s inquiry into Increasing police productivity, 04 March 2026

Parliament page

23 Feb 2026 To committee Letter from the Chief Executive Officer of the College of Policing relating to a follow-up to the Committee’s evidence session on 24 November 2025 on Increasing police productivity, 18 February 2026

Parliament page

8 Jan 2026 To committee Letter from the Second Permanent Secretary at the Home Office relating to the Committee’s evidence session on 24 November 2025 on Increasing police productivity, 12 December 2025

Parliament page

15 Dec 2025 To committee Letter from the Chief Executive Officer at The College of Policing relating to the Committee’s evidence session on 24 November 2025 on Increasing Police productivity, 08 December 2025

Parliament page