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AIF to input on review of police costings at music festivals
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 6 May 2010
The Association Of Independent Festivals has issued a statement regards the Association Of Chief Police Officers’ plans to review their guidelines regarding the fees charged for police services.
The government’s Department Of Culture, Media & Sport plan to arrange for cultural groups who have to pay for the policing of their events to have an informal input on that review, and reps from AIF will be presenting their viewpoint as part of that process. They want the ‘scoring system’ used to work out how much organisations should pay for police support to distinguish between large and small festivals, because at the moment they are treated the same, despite the differences in scale, audience and budgets between major and indie festivals.
Following a report on the ACP review in Music Week this week, the AIF said in a statement: “We are anxious about the use of a scoring system for public events that lumps all music festivals together, without any reference to style, size or location. The score informs the level of charge and the guidance sees music festivals given the highest possible score – considerably above that of any football match.
There is also no requirement for police forces to submit their costings in a timely manner; this can result in serious financial cash flow issues for what are already very expensive events”.
AIF board member and Loud Sound Director Jim King told CMU: “The cost of policing has increased substantially over the last three to five years because of the ‘full cost recovery’ initiative and, importantly, the hourly rate tariffs for police officers. Our members’ events are being charged using the most expensive tariff possible, which also includes provisions for a police force’s overheads and pension contributions. The rate being charged works out at around £55 per hour for a police constable – which, on an annualised basis, makes them arguably the best paid staff on a festival site. Greater dialogue must be entered into between the police and the event industry to discuss what we feel is a very real threat to the viability of independent festivals”.
