Bedfordshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) has secured specific Home Office approval to increase the police council tax precept above the standard limit for 2026/27, setting a £18.50 rise for a Band D property.
This is the highest increase since 2019 (£24).
Speaking at last night’s Bedfordshire Police and Crime Panel on Tuesday (3 February), the PCC confirmed that the increase represents a 6.6 per cent rise.
He said the decision followed representations made to the Home Office and was aimed at stabilising police finances and beginning to rebuild reserves.
“The cap limit was £15 for Band D, and I asked for a £10 increase above that,” the commissioner told the panel.
“I was awarded £3.50.”
The panel heard that five other PCCs were allowed the extra £3.50 as well. “Our reserves are low,” he said. “We are having to take from the reserves this year and next year.
“Part of this is actually about beginning to rebuild these reserves up to a target of 2.5 per cent of spend.”
Read: Bedfordshire PCC role to be scrapped in national shake-up of policing
Public consultation
The increase comes against the backdrop of the government’s final police funding settlement for 2026/27, which allows police and crime commissioners to raise the police precept by up to £15 on a Band D property without triggering a referendum.
While commissioners are not legally required to apply the full £15 increase, the Home Office settlement assumes that the full flexibility will be used when calculating national police funding levels.
The Home Office has said that if all commissioners apply the full £15 increase, police forces nationally could raise up to £364 million more from council tax in 2026/27.
The PCC told the panel that the public consultation carried out locally ahead of the budget decision did not include a specific cash figure for the proposed increase.
“The consultation question was whether the respondents would support my ability to put the council tax [sic] up to the permitted maximum,” he said.
“We didn’t have a specific figure because at that stage we didn’t know what the cap limit would be… [and] the government had changed the rules anyway.
“We had more saying yes than we had saying no.”
The panel was told “just over” 700 people responded to the consultation, compared with just over 500 the previous year.
The PCC said Bedfordshire has 730,000 residents, including “ineligible” people, making the responses “statistically irrelevant.”
Cllr Steve Moore (Liberal Democrats/Luton Borough Council) raised concerns that the national funding settlement’s assumptions around precept levels could place pressure on commissioners to adopt the maximum increase.
Sustainable budget
Responding, the PCC said that choosing not to use the full flexibility of the precept could weaken a commissioner’s case when seeking additional funding from central government.
“If I were in the finance department in the Home Office and a PCC had said, ‘I can get away with putting the precept up by half the limit,’ why would I give you an additional special grant?” he said.
He warned that the loss of special grants, worth around £7.5 million a year and used to support policing of serious and organised crime in Bedfordshire, would have significant consequences.
“If, for whatever reason, the Home Office decided not to fund the special grant, we would have to go back to the drawing board with the whole budget,” he said. “There would be severe cuts to frontline services.”
Despite the increase, the commissioner confirmed that the budget would not fund additional police officers or staff.
“This is a budget which sustains us; it means we don’t have to make dramatic cuts.”
The panel was unable to veto the increase as too many members were absent from the meeting.
After rejecting a proposal to support the precept without comment, it moved towards approving the increase with attached recommendations.
These were largely around financial sustainability and ongoing scrutiny.
By John Guinn
Local Democracy Reporter
