Friday 8 September 1995
Police seek extra cash to protect Prince at Eton
By Neil Darbyshire
EXTRA government funds are likely to be made available next year for police protection of Prince William at Eton, the Home Office said yesterday.
The money would go to the Thames Valley force, which has formed a squad of 19 officers to provide 24-hour security at the school at an estimated cost of up to £600,000.
Senior officers have expressed concern that the money would be taken from their existing budget, to the detriment of other projects. No money was set aside for the current financial year because it was not known whether the Prince would be going to Eton.
Thames Valley, which also has Windsor Castle and Ludgrove, Prince Harry's prep school, in its area, is one of four English and three Scottish forces to receive extra funds for security spending.
But the budgets do not allow for the build-up of a contingency fund, or take account of exceptional expenditure and some forces have struggled to cope this year.
Before new funding arrangements came into force this year, police authorities were able to approve ad hoc spending increases to cope with unforeseen incidents and the Home Office was obliged to pay 51 per cent of the bill. It is now extremely rare for agreed budgets to be supplemented from central funds.
The Essex force, for example, has had to spend an extra £2.1 million on policing demonstrations against the export of live animals at Brightlingsea and the Sussex force £4 million on similar commitments at Shoreham.
In Gloucestershire, the Frederick West murder inquiry has so far cost police almost £1.5 million.
All three forces applied for supplementary grants but were told that they had to find the money from their existing budgets. The Home Office did not regard any of the incidents as "wholly exceptional".
David Burke, chief constable of North Yorkshire and chairman of the finance committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: "It is a constant knife-edge exercise juggling the budgets, using every penny to provide normal policing levels while having some held back to deal with emergencies.
"If we are forced into a financial crisis we can't overcome, there is a facility to borrow forward but that leaves us shorter next year."
Police forces can hire out officers to patrol private areas and events and may seek certain types of sponsorship. To this end, Mr Burke has appointed a marketing manager for his force.
While he said he would stop short of advertising logos on patrol cars he felt there were many areas of alternative funding and sponsorship which needed to be explored such as sponsored drug education talks in schools.
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