The claim
“My understanding is that the 15 per cent figure – that was quoted by the Shadow Home Secretary – is wrong, and that it is an interpretation of the House of Commons library figures rather than the House of Commons library figure.”
Home Secretary Theresa May MP, Select Committee, December 14, 2010
The background
The Home Secretary threw down the statistical gauntlet over police funding today – and FactCheck just couldn’t resist the urge to pick it up. The 15 per cent at the heart of the issue here is about how much polices forces will be cut over the next two years. In the Spending Review, the Chancellor said the boys in blue would be cut by up to 20 per cent by 2014-15.
Yesterday the Home Office said that 13 per cent of these cuts will come in the next two years. But the House of Commons library figures seemed to suggest the police face a significantly larger funding cut of more like 15 per cent over the 2011-12 and 2012-13 period. So, who’s right?
The analysis
Justice minister Nick Herbert announced yesterday that police in England and Wales face cuts of 4 per cent in 2011-12 and 5 per cent in 2012-13. This total includes specific grants – such as those for counter terrorism funding.
But if we strip out those specific grants we might have a better idea of how much cuts will affect the frontline.
Nick Herbert himself said the cuts to core police funding will amount to 5.1 per cent in 2011-12 and 6.7 per cent in 2012-13 – in cash terms. So, that’s already a bit higher than the headline figures, because those grants aren’t included.
By only quoting cash terms though, Shadow Home Secretary Ed Balls accused Herbert of being “disingenuous”. Cash figures do not take inflation into account – changes in purchasing power over time.
Balls commissioned the research by the House of Commons Library – which found that cuts to core police funding in real terms amount to 7.1 per cent next year and 8.5 per cent in the year of the Olympics.
Home Secretary Teresa May told the House of Commons Select Committee today that she did not accept the 15 per cent figure quoted by Balls.
She said it was an “interpretation” of the figures released by the House of Commons library. And she’s right – in one way.
But Balls didn’t actually quote a 15 per cent figure – The Guardian newspaper did. The Guardian added the two years together to come up with 15.6 per cent.
The Home Office spokesman tonight was very keen to point out to FactCheck that this was wrong – because The Guardian had overlooked the fascinating rules of compound percentages.
FactCheck could never be accused of such sloppiness – we did take it account and came up with the not wildly different figure of 14.9 per cent.
But perhaps we’re getting distracted. The bigger picture is about whether the government could be accused of misleading voters, by not including inflation – CPI for November ran at 3.3 per cent, while RPI is at 4.7 per cent.
On a cash term basis, the House of Commons Library broadly stacks up Herbert’s claim that total police cuts will ring in at 4 per cent this year and 5 per cent the next – and indeed their figures are not far off from Herbert’s core police funding cuts of 5.1 per cent this year and 6.7 per cent the next.
Yet, as we’ve said – in real terms, the Library shows much bigger cuts to that core police funding: 7.1 per cent of funding will go in 2011-12 and 8.5 per cent in 2012-13.
We put this feast of numbers to the Home Office tonight. A spokesman said that breaking out core police funding in this way was unfair – because it didn’t take into account all the different grants available to police forces.
Why then, FactCheck wondered, had the policing minister done just that yesterday? It was for the benefit of police forces we were told, and not the media.
The verdict
The figures are there in black and white – the House of Commons Library didn’t add the two years up, but neither did Ed Balls.
But when FactCheck did, the cuts to core funding were 14.9 per cent – not too dissimilar to 15 per cent then.
Balls apparently quoted the first two years of police cuts because he wanted to hold up a mirror to Herbert’s figures – and to emphasise his concern about the heaviest cuts falling in the first two years.
Finally, it is worth noting that we did look at the House of Commons Library research on the real term cuts over all four years. And they do confirm George Osborne’s figures – the cuts will total 20 per cent in real terms by 2014-15.
