Sussex Police precept decided

The precept is Sussex Police’s portion of the council take bill. The force needs to find £6million savings – down from £8million – to balance its 2024/25 budget, with Mrs Bourne saying more ‘efficiencies’ and savings would need to be found.

At a meeting of the Sussex Police & Crime Panel on Friday, January 26, Mrs Bourne said: “Looking forward, Sussex Police faces quite a big challenge. Crime is continuing to grow, the processes involved in dealing with crime are becoming more complex and like many other organisations, Sussex police has been affected by inflationary costs.”

Mrs Bourne said investment had been working to increase police visibility through additional recruiting, reducing crime in Sussex, and improving 999 and non-emergency 101 call-response times.

She said a £13 annual increase to the precept for a band D property would help maintain investment amid a potential need for cuts, with the increase being agreed by 15 of the 16 panel members.

Lewes District Council panel representative Paul Keene (Green, Lewes Priory) said the increase came at a time of ‘decades’ high ‘deprivation’ in a cost of living crisis, and asked Mrs Bourne how the police were accounting for lowest-income households’ opinion on the increase.

Mrs Bourne said she ‘would never take a decision like this lightly’ and that a public survey on the increase showed more than 50 per cent support for an increase in the precept. She added that she recognised £13 would be ‘an ask’ for some households.

The panel also agreed to write a letter to the Secretary of State for the Home Office, James Cleverly, and the Minister for Policing about their ‘funding approach’ for police forces,

Sussex has the seventh-lowest police precept in England, and the sixth-lowest funding per person, with the increase to take it from £239.91 a year for band D households to £252.91.