Big questions over new PCC resource formula

A few months ago, the Thames Valley PCC announced that he was changing the way that the funds for local Community Safety Partnerships under his control would be allocated. His original proposal was that the formula for deciding on the allocation should broadly reflect the resource allocation formula used by the constabulary to allocate police resources. His proposals were not met with, shall we say, much enthusiasm...

His original formula was this:

Population (2011 census) - 30%
All recorded crime - 35%
All incidents (excluding admin & crime) - 35%

I have criticised this formula before (see link here) for being essentially self reinforcing.

Anyway, the proposal would have meant some serious reductions in funding for the major (and higher crime) cities of Thames Valley with the 'winners' being the more rural (and lower crime) areas. (Although everyone is about to lose because the funding had gone down.)

Now to be fair, Mr Stansfeld did consult on this formula and it would appear did listen. As a new formula has been proposed in a paper produced by the PCC for the recent PCP meeting.

Population (2011 census) - 20%
Recorded crime (per 1000 population) - 20%
Number of ASB incidents - 20%
Home location of offenders and suspects - 20%
Number of opiat* & crack cocaine users per 1000 population - 20%

(*I thought it was opiate by the way)

So what are the implications of this? Here is a table which summarises:

	2013/14			2014/15
	CSF	YOT	Total	Allocation	Variation
Bracknell	126,025	42,976	169,001	154,800	-14,201	-8.40%
Bucks CC	413,051	121,466	534,517	501,717	-32,800	-6.14%
Milton Keynes	213,929	92,643	306,572	297,669	-8,903	-2.90%
Oxon CC	746,160	145,000	891,160	789,316	-101,844	-11.43%
Reading	572,047	52,498	624,545	520,749	-103,796	-16.62%
Slough	371,619	34,954	406,573	365,862	-40,711	-10.01%
West Berkshire	134,341	43,424	177,765	177,290	-475	-0.27%
Windsor & Maidenhead	147,005	22,389	169,394	169,394	0	0.00%
Wokingham	100,516	18,014	118,530	118,530	0	0.00%
TVP	615,000		615,000	657,000	42,000	6.83%
Total	3,439,693	573,364	4,013,057	3,752,326	-260,731	-6.50%

So the three biggest losers are Reading, Slough & Oxon. While the areas least affected are Wokingham, Windsor & Maidenhead and (the area where Mr Stansfeld lives and is still a local councillor) West Berkshire.

So the areas which include some of the highest crime areas and most deprived wards are losing the most. Is this what Mr Stansfeld meant by prioritising rural crime?

But I will hold back from suggesting that this formula is an extraordinarily biased one designed to benefit the areas where Mr Stansfeld has his main political support. However, I do think there are some big problems with it:

• Firstly it assumes that all this data is accessible and reliable. Apart from the census data, the other four (to greater and lesser degrees) may have large fictional elements
• After all the brouhaha about the reliability of recorded crime data in this last week, should this really feature at all? 
• While drug use undoubtedly is a major factor in crime & community safety, what about alcohol? My suspicion is that alcohol use is a much bigger factor. Why does this not feature in the same way?
• And why home location? Surely what matters is where the crimes etc are committed?
• And what model of crime prevention is this formula based upon? I would like to know - it seems a million miles away from (say) the work of Ekblom (links here and here) or Problem Solving Policing or even Problem Orientated Policing... 
• Could there be some perverse incentives to report more ASB (for example)?

I know the amounts of money are not mega bucks but any resource allocation needs to be done carefully and strategically. For me there are very many unanswered questions concerning this new formula.

What do you think?