Responding to the National Audit Office report on the financial sustainability of police forces, released on 11.9.2018, Association President Chief Superintendent Gavin Thomas said:

 “This report raises many of the same issues that we are concerned about.  

“Through localism, the Home Office has delegated responsibility for policing to individual forces, including overall financial management, which has left a void in the vision for the service and put Chiefs in an invidious position of choosing between fair pay and staff numbers.  

“The service is really feeling the strain and as the pressure on policing continues to increase, everyone needs to understand what they are working towards.  

“We urgently need a conversation with the public about what they want policing to do and to not do, and then the service needs to be structured and funded to do this.  

“Otherwise policing will be in a perpetual state of crisis, unable to provide the service we want to or that the public expect.”