Mr. Alan Todd:

It is a problem for us in Northern Ireland. There is large-scale capital investment by central government to fund the establishment of schemes. The schemes are now coming to the end of their life and there is no capital available to replace them. Local authorities do not want to pick up the revenue costs and the lines in our budget from which we used to contribute have also been squeezed. We have been made the offer of a free transfer of capital assets of community schemes to policing, but I have had to turn it down because I do not have the money to refresh them or the revenue streams to monitor them and all the rest. That is counter-intuitive in terms of public confidence, but I literally do not have the money to pay for them. Unless we can have local models that are supported by local businesses and local authorities, that are funded locally and bolted in and that the police can access, I do not see the police being able to maintain them with what we have within current budget arrangements, never mind expand on them.