Police Scotland’s projected overspend for the financial year has shrunk from almost £19 million to around £5 million, the force’s chief financial officer said.
The force was expected to go over its 2023/2024 budget of £1.4 billion by £18.9 million, but it said this figure has now reduced by £13.9 million.
Police Scotland’s chief financial officer James Gray told a Scottish Police Authority (SPA) board meeting in Glasgow there had been “significant progress” on the issue since a meeting last autumn, and he is confident the Scottish Government will grant leeway for the new projected figure.
Mr Gray said a “huge amount of work right across the organisation” had taken place over the last few months.
He said: “We continue to work as hard as we can to reduce that overall £5 million forecast overspend.
“We don’t see £5 million as a target – we see it as a parameter, and we’ll seek to continue to work to bring that down.”
On whether the Scottish Government would agree to fund the overspend, Mr Gray said: “We’ve not yet had confirmation of that, but from speaking regularly with colleagues and the Scottish Government, we know that we will get that budget cover before the end of the financial year so that we will be in an authorised position with regards to overspend but we’ve been told it will probably be quite late on in the financial year before we get that.”
He said Police Scotland had spent 88% of its annual budget for the financial year by the end of December, and is “tracking now to deliver a balanced budget for capital”.
Mr Gray added: “From an operational perspective, that obviously has serious implications in that we are not buying equipment, we’re not moving with technology, we’re not able to do work in the estate, such as replacing boilers at the pace which we would want to.”
Police Scotland’s Chief Constable Jo Farrell wrote to the Scottish Government before Christmas to seek approval for an authorised overspend of up to £5 million.
She told the board meeting on Thursday: “I think the Scottish Government will be encouraged by the effort that Police Scotland put into this to bring this back in line, and I think the lack of confirming that amount is they’re just waiting to see if it goes down further.
“They will be having other demands across all the public sectors.”
Ms Farrell said she believes they are financially “within the parameters that we’ve set out” and that she has “no concerns”.
Earlier in the meeting, she said police officers who are required to go to court to give evidence on criminal cases can also hit the budget, as often the officers are not asked to speak in court.
She wants more officers to return to frontline duties, stating they have currently around 150 officers across the country who are “assigned to duties at court buildings at a cost of £7 million a year”.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “We continue to work closely with Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority to manage their 2023/24 budget position.”
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