Norfolk police cuts will not be as draconian as expected - but it will rely on a 2pc increase in the precept on tax bills each year.

https://infogr.am/police_budget_changes

Stephen Bett, Norfolk's police and crime commissioner, said the announcement was good news because they origninally believed they would have to find £17m and a further £9m by 2020, we will now have to make £12m of cuts.

'There are going to be cuts but they are not going to be as draconian as we thought they were going to be. But this is all predicated that we raise the precept 2pc year on year.'

'Obviously I'm pleased, but the home secretary made it clear change was going to happen and she expected more reforms.'

He warned it was not a 'get out of jail free card'.

'What we are going to be policing over the next few years is going to be very different, and more expensive.'

But he said that in his 25 years in the council and being involved with the police it was the first time he had see the government set out funding based on a precept increase.

He said the proportion of funding from central government to the overall budget would fall 2pc, with police cash from the locally raised tax accounting for 42pc of funding by 2020.

'The government has predicated that we do that to agree our funding. It is the first time I've ever known it in my 25 years at the county council and my nearly 20 years of being involved with the police.'