THE government has been blamed for Surrey's lost standing as safest county in the country at a meeting of Surrey County Council. Surrey has surrendered its proud record, based on crime figures, to Wiltshire and now holds the position of second-safest county after some years in the top slot. Tony Rooth, county councillor for the Shalford division, which includes Seale, Sands and Tongham, claimed that lack of government funding, together with government red tape and lack of flexibility allowed to police authorities, meant that the soaring tax demand of the police authority was not translated into bobbies on the beat. Mr Rooth said that the council tax demand for Surrey Police had increased by £58.6 million, or nearly 400 per cent, since Tony Blair came to power in 1997. He asked the chairman of the police authority, Andrew Povey, how much of the extra tax had been allocated to hiring extra police personnel. Dr Povey replied that the employee budget had increased from £67.2 million to £132.9 million and the number of employees had risen from 2,700 to 3,800. "Our funding position is challenging because we receive the lowest grant per head of population in England and Wales," said Dr Povey. "We are proposing to government that greater flexibility in the way that we are able to use budgets would enable us to make the most effective use of the funding we receive." Mr Rooth told The Herald that had all the increase in the police council tax levy over the past eight years been spent on police officers, it would have paid for an additional 900 police on Surrey's streets. "We already knew that Labour's fiddled funding has forced local councils to whack up council tax bills. "Now we can see that our police forces have suffered, too. "The police levy on council tax bills in Surrey has rocketed by nearly 400 per cent since 1997. "But this extra tax has not been solely spent on more police on the beat. Red tape and burdens imposed from Whitehall have forced up policing costs. As a result, Surrey misses 900 additional police officers which could have been funded. "This just confirms that under Mr Blair, council tax bills are now daylight robbery." He asked Dr Povey if he agreed that in order to restore Surrey's reputation as the safest county, the flexibility was needed to put extra police on the streets rather than employees to cope with more government red tape and bureaucracy. The police chairman answered that he fully agreed with the comments.
