Lincolnshire Police 370 officers short due to ‘lack of parity’ with funding – chief constable

Lincolnshire Police remains the ‘lowest funded’ force in the country – with the equivalent of 370 fewer officers than similar groups.

Chief Constable Chris Haward says his ‘disadvantaged’ team are dealing with higher workloads on a lower budget than other forces.

Criminal justice specialists Crest Advisory told a recent episode of BBC investigative documentary Panorama that England and Wales needs an extra 18,000 officers just to keep up with the population growth of the past 14 years.

This led to figures from the county’s force taking to social media to share eyebrow raising statistics about how policing in the county is financially deprived.

Lincolnshire Police have 157 officers per 100,000 people, the lowest in the country according to figures published last year.

Wiltshire (161 per 100,000) and Hampshire (170 per 100,000) are the second and third lowest.

These are a stark contrast to the figures at the top of the table which is led by City of London (11,731 per 100,000), The Met (403 per 100,000), Merseyside Police (293 per 100,000) and Greater Manchester Police (281 per 100,000).

“Lincolnshire Police continues to be the lowest funded force per head of population, something which has driven efficient working over a number of years,” Chief Const Haward said.

“Lincolnshire Police are disadvantaged by a system and funding solution that asks our officers to carry higher workloads than similar sized forces whilst giving us less resources to manage this.

“Our funding is £196 per head of population in 2023/24 compared to an average of £222 per head for similar forces.

“This means that, compared with our most similar group (MSG) of forces, Lincolnshire officers deal with a 35% greater workload with a 13% smaller budget.”

Chief Const Haward said the figure now stands even lower at 155 officers per 100,000 residents.

He continued: “We have the lowest number of officers per 100,000 population at 155 leading to the high individual workloads.

“This is compared to an average of 203 in our MSG. If the same ratio were applied to Lincolnshire this would provide an additional 370 officers.

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“Both I, former Chief Constables and the PCC (Police Crime Commissioner Marc Jones) , have made representation to governments over the past 10 to 15 years asking for the funding formula to be revised to provide a fairer settlement for the people of Lincolnshire.

“We will continue to work with Lincolnshire MPs to lobby Government to update the national police funding formula.

“I’m very proud of what our officers achieve despite this lack of parity, and we will continue to work as hard as we need to for our community.”