GLOUCESTERSHIRE people are being asked if they would back a council tax rise to help support the austerity-stricken police force.

Gloucestershire Police and Crime Commissioner Martin Surl has begun a consultation on whether severe budget cuts in the county’s police should be offset with a rise in taxes.

Police in Gloucestershire are funded through local council tax and a Home Office grant. However, the Government is not expected to announce how much grant the police will get until December which means the research will be carried out against a background of austerity.

A council tax freeze would force police to find further savings of £13million over the next three years but a two per cent increase in council tax would reduce the figure to £10million.

This is on top of the £5million cut from this year’s budget and savings of £20million for the four years from 2011/12 to 2014/15.

If council tax goes up by two per cent, it would mean around an extra £4 per year on an average Band D property or less than 8 pence per week.

The consultation began on last Thursday (1) and will run until mid November.

Mr Surl, who as commissioner has to write the police budget, said: “The Chief Constable made it clear when I rejected her case for a 2 per cent increase last year and froze the precept, that she would be making a similar argument again this year. I will consider that case on its merits whilst getting the public’s views.

“Like all public sector bodies, the police have made big cuts in recent years – around £20million since 2011. For an organisation with a budget of just over £100 million that is a considerable reduction. Those cuts were made against the government’s expectation the deficit would be cleared by now but it’s not worked out that way.

“We have been warned we can expect to be told to save in the region of another £20million. The problem the Chief Constable and I have is that we won’t be told exactly how much and how until we get the results of the chancellor’s spending review in December and there’s not much time to finalise the budget after that.

He added that the police were having to deal with more crimes than ever, including child sexual abuse, people trafficking, online exploitation and honour-based violence.

He said: “This period of austerity has been tough for many people and it’s not a good time to be asking them to pay more, but there has to be a balance between the needs of the police and the wishes of the public and I have to prepare a budget in that context.”