Policing in North Wales will receive an 8.4% increase in its funding for 2022/23 to drive down crime and deliver safer streets for all.
The funding boost is part of £1.1 billion package announced by Home Secretary Priti Patel on Thursday (December 16th).
The 2022/23 funding package for England and Wales represents an inflation-busting 7% cash increase on last year and means policing will receive up to £16.9 billion in total in 2022/23.
Welcoming the additional funding for North Wales, Vale of Clwyd MP Dr James Davies said:
“The budget for policing in North Wales will increase from £176.1m in 2021/22 to £184.5m in 2022/23, an increase of 8.4%.
“This increase will benefit North Wales greatly and is further evidence of the government’s determination to bear down on crime.”
He added: “The boost in resources will help support the delivery of the Beating Crime Plan, which set out the government’s mission to deliver fewer victims, safer neighbourhoods, and a more secure country.
“In particular, the plan focuses on driving down homicide, serious violence and neighbourhood crime – to ensure that everyone can benefit from the security that a safe home, street and country provides.”
The additional funding will allow police forces to continue the work already being done to target criminals, which has seen:
- a 14% fall in overall crime (excluding fraud and computer misuse) between June 2019 and June 2021
- 11,053 additional officers hired across England and Wales – 55% of the target of 20,000 extra police officers by March 2023
- over 1,500 county lines closed, over 7,400 arrests, £4.3m in drugs seized and more than 4,000 vulnerable people safeguarded, thanks to our investment in shutting down county lines since 2019.
- almost 16,000 knives and other dangerous weapons removed from the streets last year thanks to police use of stop and search powers.
- 300,000 at risk young people reached through Violence Reduction Units, set up across the country thanks to £105.5m in funding. This forms part of the £242m we’ve invested since 2019 to zone in on serious violence and homicide hotspots.
Within the total package, forces will also be given £550 million more from government grants, including funding for hiring the 20,000 extra officers promised by the government by the end of March 2023. The successful recruitment campaign has already seen more than 11,000 additional police officers join up and make a difference in communities across England and Wales.
Home Secretary, Priti Patel, said:
“Crimes including theft, burglary and knife crime are down, we’ve got an additional 11,053 police officers on our streets, and we’ve shut down 1,500 drugs lines which exploit the young and the vulnerable.
“But we must go further and faster to make our communities even safer, so today I am giving our excellent police forces and law enforcement agencies more funding to do just that, in line with our Beating Crime Plan.
“Reducing crime is a top priority for this government and I will continue working with police leaders to ensure this unprecedented investment results in less crime and fewer victims.”
