Avon and Somerset Police will charge more council tax from April.
The police and crime panel voted on Tuesday in favour of the Police and Crime Commissioner’s (PCC) proposal to increase the police precept – the portion of council tax allocated to police services – by 5%.
For a band D property, this will see an extra £14 added to the annual bill for policing, taking it from £279 to £293.
The increase will generate an additional £8.5m for the force, the PCC’s office said. Chief Constable Sarah Crew told the meeting that even with this increase, the force would need to find £6m of savings.
Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Clare Moody said: “I know the cost of living is a concern for many, and I did not take this decision lightly.”
Without the increase, the force would have faced a significant deficit, even after making cuts committed to in its £6.4m savings plan over the next year.
In an interview with the BBC, Ms Crew said staff posts have already been reduced over the past 18 months, “and we have tried to do it without hitting a redundancy situation”, she said.
Staff roles cut include police staff investigators and PCSOs.
“We are trying to get to a position where when people leave and move into other posts we are not filing them and then we are reorganising how we work to manage without those posts,” she said.
About 250 of 2,800 support staff roles have been reduced over the past 18 months, “and out of 282 PCSOs we are working to a position where we will get to 230,” Ms Crew continued.
The chair of the police and crime panel, councillor Heather Shearer, said it had approved the increase “just to keep the wheels on”.
The decision followed a public consultation, in which 3,146 residents across the region shared their views. The majority of responses, 52%, supported a precept increase of £10 or more.
Ms Crew said the need for a rise was because of an increase in demand on the force – which she said was “not about crime”.
“Crime is only about 25% of our demand, we are dealing with lots of other things,” she said. She added much of a police officer’s time was supervising people in need of help until “somebody with the right skills comes along”.
“I don’t come to this with a defeatist mindset. We have to prioritise. We will respond to your emergencies consistently and well. We will see justice done for you,” Ms Crew added.
Meanwhile, Ms Moody added: “It is my responsibility to ensure our police service has the resources to continue tackling crime, keeping communities safe, and improving trust and confidence in policing.
“It is an annual increase and we know police needs that funding right now.”
