British home secretary likely to be sued by UK police over alleged funding cuts

British Home Secretary Theresa May is likely to be sued by West Midlands Police, one of the largest police forces in the United Kingdom.

The legal action may be taken against the home secretary over her alleged plan to cut millions of police funding. West Midlands is now considering legal actions against May over the way she has conducted a consultation exercise on a new police funding formula.

The force has made a Freedom of Information Act request and demanded to disclose how individual forces will be affected by May’s alleged plan. The Guardian has come to know about a leaked internal analysis by senior police finance officials. The analysis shows major urban forces like West Midlands are going to suffer significant deduction in funding.

The Police and Crime Commissioners Treasurers’ Society figures show Merseyside and West Midlands will face 25 percent Home Office grants in 2016. Greater Manchester will face 23 percent cuts and Northumbria 18 percent. The Metropolitan police will face 43 percent cut in their Whitehall grant.

The Police and Crime Commissioner for Thames Valley Police has expressed concerns over the deep cuts in funding. The new formula for allocating police funds deals with account issues like pub intensity, population and deprivation levels.

Candy Heinrich from the Police and Crime Commissioner office said the document might have been misinterpreted. “The consultation document is open to a number of different interpretations and the PCC is confident it will not be implemented in the way that has been publicised,” Oxford Mail quoted her as saying. “A wide number of issues were covered, including the PCCs concerns about the new formula grant which would appear to result in further large cuts to TVP funding.”

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