In recent years, the Police Federation of England and Wales (the organisation who act similarly to a trade union for rank-and-file police officers) and Sir Mark Rowley (the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis) have used the excuse of underfunding to explain where police officials and officers are currently falling short. Yet, Mukaund Krishna (the current Police Federation chief executive) has reportedly received a salary £1.4 million across 2024 and 2025 with 100% bonuses from both years. Additionally, the overpolicing of racialised communities with practices such as stop and search can be considered to compound the problem, as the persistent low arrest rates and a high no further action rates demonstrate a poor use of funds.
Financial breakdown
To give a financial breakdown of Krishna’s salary, evidence shows that they received a basic salary of £342,000 together with a £342,000 retention payment and 5% pension contribution (which amounts to around £17,000) annually. Given these facts, it can be argued that perhaps an element of the ‘underfunding’ experienced is those at the top reaping financial benefits at the expense of everyone else.
Austerity
Another key issue is where police funds are being spent; austerity has enabled the expansion of police operations – not in terms of size but in power and influence. It can be argued that austerity experienced by the police has paradoxically resulted in the police supplementing, replacing and integrating into other institutions, while being presented as the social institution to solve societal problems. For example, police presence at mental health related incidents can be seen as a result of chronic underfunding to mental health trusts which did receive actual real term reductions to their income over the same period.
Like many areas of society, the police force is not exempt from feeling the effects of years of austerity. However, despite a reduction in deployment of stop and search, a previous StopWatch article highlighted that racial disproportionality within searches was still present. Furthermore, in addition to resources being spent on stop and search it has been argued that police resources have also been depleted through their use in situations that the forces themselves have noted is out of the remit of their expertise (including police presence at mental health crisis incidents), which should be responded to with care over criminalisation.
Recent figures show that in 66.6% of stop and searches under section 1 of the Police And Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE), the outcome was recorded as needing ‘no further action’. Section 1 of PACE allows an officer the power to stop and search individuals and vehicles where specific conditions have been met including where an officer believes a suspect may have stolen or prohibited items e.g. weapons or drugs. In real terms, this means that in two thirds of cases the police are conducting searches on people and no formal charges are being bought. Recent Home Office data shows that Black people (officer-observed and self-defined) were stopped and searched nearly 5 times more often compared with white people. Yet, those who identify as Black/Black British only make up 4% of the population of England and Wales. By highlighting this statistic, it is evident that there is still a high level of institutional racism within the police. Should the resources that are currently expended on overpolicing racialised communities be redirected towards tackling crime, the frequently invoked gap in funds and personnel capacity could quite possibly be plugged.
In the year ending 31 March 2025, a total of 5,572 stop and searches were conducted under section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. This was an increase of 5.4% from the previous year. Again, we see the disparity with those who self- and officer- identify as being Black, who are at a higher risk of experiencing this type of search. Black people were searched under the power 5.3 times more than white people in the year to 31 March 2025. However the disparity between ethnicities has been as great as 18 times in previous years. The Home Office has argued that one reason for this percentage being so high is that many of the stop and searches take place in London which has a higher proportion of Black people compared to the rest of England and Wales resulting in a skewed set of results.
Concluding thoughts
Claims made by those in positions of power of police underfunding should be examined through the lens of the existing use of police resources. Perhaps the problem is not necessarily that the police are underfunded so much as that those in power are reaping the financial benefit and resources are being allocated to ineffective areas of policing such as stop and search which have a very low conviction rate. The institutional racism present within the police is one of its own downfalls.
By Kacey Stack, StopWatch volunteer
All blogposts are published with the permission of the author. The views expressed are solely the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of StopWatch UK