Financial Resources

In order to achieve the level of service West Mercia seeks to achieve we have to manage our resources effectively.

Finances

The planned budget for 2009/10 is £197.6 million after use of reserves. This comprises:

The budget is received from the following sources:

Investment Programme

The investment programme for 2009/10 will allocate £26.5 million to priority areas. This will include:

• Improvements to custody facilities at Hereford, Ross-on-Wye, Telford and Wellington
• First steps towards new police stations for Bromsgrove, Market Drayton, Bewdley and Ironbridge
• A new force helicopter

Efficiency and Productivity Plan

West Mercia has a good track record of achieving efficiencies and since 1999 has achieved a cumulative total of £42 million efficiency savings. This exceeds the target set by the Home Office when the formal regime of recording was introduced.

For the three years of Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) period 2008-2011, police forces are expected to identify efficiency gains to a total of 9.3% of gross revenue expenditure. For West Mercia the amount required will be a target of £19.5 million, which given our previous track record will be an ambitious one.

West Mercia has already recorded £10 million of efficiency gains in 2008/09 which is in excess of the planned target. We are developing a Strategic Resource Leverage process to identify further efficiency gains with some specific projects already in progress. The potential areas for further savings are:

• Workforce Modernisation
• Procurement
• Process Improvement
• Sustainability

The focus of the Home Office’s Efficiency Planning Strategy is on productivity. In accordance with their guidelines the sources and reinvestment areas of efficiency initiatives will be subject to assessment by Key Performance Measures and Statutory Performance Indicators.

The following performance/cost matrix drawn from the last Home Office publication of Policing Performance Assessment Framework data confirms that West Mercia is a value for money force since it delivers upper quartile performance on lower quartile resources. Further evidence of value for money service provision is our top ranking in the Audit Commission’s Police Use of Resources Evaluation where West Mercia received the top score for value for money for the third year running.

Procurement Statement

The "Best Value and Planning Guidance for Police Authorities and Forces 2003" requires the inclusion of a statement on procurement to confirm that the Authority is abiding by guidance in relation to staffing matters.

The Authority's Standing Orders under Contracts provide for awarding contracts on a value for money basis and we use a standard approach to evaluation which takes account of both quality and whole life costs. Evaluation models are tailored to each exercise and tenders follow the Authority's Tendering Procedures.

For all major contracts that involve staff transfer, compliance with the ‘Code of Practice on Workforce Matters in Police Authority Service Contracts' is part of the contract documentation. During 2008/09 there were no contracts awarded which involved the transfer of Police Authority staff.

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