Lincolnshire Police Deal With G4S Saves 拢5m
Lincolnshire Police slashes its budget and also cuts crime in the first 12 months of a 10-year deal with security firm G4S.
Monday 24 June 2013 09:36, UK
Britain's police forces could save 拢1bn-a-year by handing work to private security companies, a commissioner has claimed.
Lincolnshire Police is championing outsourcing after slashing £5m from their annual budget by shifting back-room jobs to the security firm G4S.
The force now spends the lowest amount per head of population on policing in England and Wales following changes to its back-office operations.
It has cut its spending by nearly a fifth in the first year of its 10-year contract with G4S - equal to the cost of 125 police officers - while also slashing crime by more than 14%.
Lincolnshire police and crime commissioner (PCC) Alan Hardwick claims the national purse could save £1bn if the other 42 police forces in England and Wales followed suit.
The deal, which started last April, saw 18 operational and organisational support areas and 585 staff transferred to G4S Policing Support Services.
Among the departments transferred to private hands were the force control room, firearms licensing and custody.
A four-month backlog of files for processing firearms licences has been cleared and the 999 call response rate has risen to an average of 93% answered in 10 seconds, up from 89% in 2011/12.
The force had expected to make savings of £3.6m in the first year but exceeded this by £1.6m. It is expected to save £36m over the 10 years.
Independent PCC Mr Hardwick highlighted the need for police forces to be extra vigilant with money as deep spending cuts bite.
He said: "The Spending Review is likely to outline billions of pounds of additional cuts to public spending. This is on top of sizeable reductions already made.
"For police forces, whose budgets are already nearly 20% leaner than in 2010, the challenge - to improve quality while finding savings - is about to get bigger."
John Shaw, managing director of G4S Policing Support Services, added: "There will be many forces around the country facing difficult decisions about how to maintain services in the face of constricting budgets.
"The past year has been enormously challenging and there are important lessons which can be learned from our experience. We hope that by sharing some of our experience, other forces can learn and ultimately benefit."
G4S faced fierce criticism last year over its botched handling of its Olympics security contract.
The firm failed to deliver the numbers of security staff it had promised and the Government was forced to bring in extra troops to provide support.
The fiasco led to calls to scale back privatisation plans in other police forces and prompted the then Surrey Police Authority to shelve plans to contract out some of its support functions to the private sector.