Background

The Board approved the 2023-24 annual budget on 23 March 2023. This budget sets out the spending plans for Police Scotland, Forensic Services and SPA Corporate regarding revenue, capital, and reform for the coming financial year.

The Authority received a core revenue funding increase of £80m (6.4%) in 2023-24. Although this uplift is not as severe as the flat cash position indicated by the Resource Spending Review, it still represented a real terms reduction in funding when set against the additional cost of 2022/23 pay award (£37.0m), leaving only £43.0m to fund unavoidable pay and non-pay pressures for 2023/24.

In order to live within the budget settlement and deliver a balanced budget, over £50m of savings have been proposed in the 2023/24 budget. Plans included reducing the workforce through a reduction in officer and staff numbers and options to reduce non-pay expenditure.

Pay award budgeting was in line with Public Sector Pay Strategy (PSPS). Pay awards through negotiation at both Police Negotiating Board (PNB) and Trade Unions were agreed in September. As part of the pay negotiations, the additional funding required (£18.3m) to support the process was underwritten by the Scottish Government.

A flat capital funding allocation of £53m (including capital receipts) has been confirmed for 2023-24 and reform funding to support change and the transformation has been baselined at £20m, representing a 20% reduction in reform from previous years. As a result, in the reduction of reform funding from £25m to £20m, it was agreed by the Board to contribute £5m of core revenue budget funding to reform to support change and transformation.