A 1.2 per cent council tax increase has been approved to help bolster Gloucestershire’s police force by an extra 40 full time officers.

The decision to increase the police precept was approved by Gloucestershire County Council’s Police and Crime Panel on Friday.

It follows a recommendation from the county’s Police and Crime Commissioner Martin Surl, who resisted strong pressure from the Chief Constable Suzette Davenport to increase tax by 1.9 per cent.

This approved precept works out at less than £3 a year extra on the annual bill for a band D householder.

The £560,000 raised through the increase will help fund the recruitment of an extra 40 full time officers and 200 Special Constables over the next four years.

Mr. Surl, who writes the police budget, said he was grateful for the panel’s backing.

“We had an interesting debate and there was a strong feeling among the members that I should have set the precept higher at 1.9 per cent but there was no need," he said.

"This is a modest increase in council tax that gives the Chief Constable what she asked for.

“It will enable her to meet her operational responsibilities and allow her to begin to develop her plan to return the force to the numbers required to police the county.

“I could have put the tax up by more as many of the panel members wanted, but a higher figure would have placed an unfair burden on local taxpayers who are facing further increases to pay for local council services”.

To supplement a 1.2 per cent increase, a further £8m will be released from police reserves.

This will see £3m spent to upgrade the police intelligence systems and further develop mobile working technology.

An additional £2m will go towards estate development, and another £2m will put be put aside to ease any cuts in the force’s funding next year.

The proposals also include provision for one per cent of the policing budget to be made available for community projects and programmes managed through the Commissioner’s Fund.

It is an approach to crime reduction - the concept and scale of which is unique to Gloucestershire – that already funds 242 local initiatives countywide. Policing in Gloucestershire is funded in two ways, through local council taxes and a grant from the Home Office.

Since 2011, the force has had its budget from the government cut by £20 million – a reduction of 20 per cent.

The total Police and Crime budget for Gloucestershire for 2015/16 is £105 million.

Last year the police watchdog Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) rated the police force in Gloucestershire as ‘outstanding’ for its financial position in the short and long term.