Police Authority makes £600,000 saving

The authority, which oversees policing in the county, underspent its £101.821million budget by £666,000.

This was achieved despite funding being cut by £1million compared to 12 months previously.

Authority chairman Peter Conniff said: “The underspend, which is an unexpected windfall, will be placed in a fund to help us finance the changes we need to implement to meet the funding imposed by the government. This will include set-up costs for new projects and specific performance initiatives to boost performance if the changes lead to fluctuations.”