THE unfairness of the Government's police funding formula will see Dorset at least £5m short in the coming financial year – even with the maximum allowable increase in the force share of the council tax.

Police and Crime Commissioner for the county, David Sidwick, says he has been 'banging on' at the Government to change the formula since taking up the post almost five years ago.

"Just flippin' well get on and do it.. all we get is a promise that it will be sorted out" he told Thursday's Dorset Police and Crime Panel meeting.

The panel unanimously agreed a £13 per year increase for the average Band D home, the maximum allowed, pushing the annual payment as part of the police share of the council tax to £293.58p.

Mr Sidwick said the realistic figure should have been £30 to allow for some growth and service improvements.

He said that the Government's funding formula, which provides roughly half of the force income, amounted to what he described as "perverse alchemy" – giving much more money to urban forces and taking little, or no account, of the higher costs for forces such as Dorset which is more expensive to police because of its rural nature and because of the massive influx of visitors in the summer months.

He said that with a fairer funding formula he would like to have seen the force take on an extra 70 police officers, something which was now unlikely to be delivered, and might also have been able to reduce losses from staff posts which were likely to go through money saving reviews.

The Police and Crime Commissioner said the Chief Constable, in consultation with his office, would now have to continue looking for productivity and efficiency savings throughout the coming year, rather than plan for growth.

Asked by panel chairman, Mike Smart, whether the need for savings would impair the safety of council taxpayer he replied "absolutely not."

Questions were asked during the meeting about the £660,000 paid out each year in interest charges on £16m on debt.

Mr Sidwick said the borrowing had been necessary to support improvements to buildings, including leaking police station roofs, new boilers and solar panels, upgrades in IT equipment and new vehicles.

"People need places to work from, they need equipment and borrowing was the only way, in some cases, to deal with that. We have always tried to achieve the best borrowing rate possible."

One of the biggest capital costs for the force has been a £14.5million new headquarters building at the force headquarters at Winfrith.