This Statement of Accounts sets out the overall financial position of the Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands (PCCWM) and the consolidated accounts of the corporation soles of Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands and the Chief Constable of West Midlands Police (CCWMP). The Statement of Accounts has been prepared following the CIPFA Code of Practice on Local Authority Accounting in the United Kingdom. This interprets the International Financial Reporting Standards on which the accounts of the PCCWM are required to be based.
These are the first statutory accounts to be prepared on a group accounting basis following the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act (2011) which created 2 new entities of the Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands (PCCWM) and Chief Constable for West Midlands Police (CCWMP). For accounting purposes the PCCWM and Chief Constable together are known as the PCCWM group. A separate set of statutory accounts have been published for the Chief Constable and PCCWM/Group to recognise all the financial transactions incurred during 2012/13 for policing the West Midlands area.
In practice the Chief Constable consumes financial resources against an annual budget for the discharge of his operational policing responsibilities. The annual budget is set by the PCCWM in consultation with the Chief Constable. A scheme of delegation operates between the two bodies determining their respective responsibilities and staff management arrangements. The PCC’s accounts aim to show the nature of the resources which are controlled by the PCC, which include charges for servicing and maintenance of assets and liabilities and the running costs of the Office for Policing and Crime.
As a result, the Comprehensive Income and Expenditure Account of the PCC shows net expenditure of £75.9m in the cost of General Fund Services. Within these costs are £72m which relate to policing activities such as local policing, investigation and intelligence. These costs do not represent the cost of police officers which are wholly recognised in the Chief Constable’s accounts.
