Spending Review 2025: Does it match the scale of the Government’s ambition on crime and justice?

Perspectives

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Sophie Davis, Director of Research

Thursday 12 June 2025

Sophie is our Director of Research and has experience working with government departments, police forces and senior audiences across the criminal justice sector.

If you would like to discuss any research questions or opportunities that arise from the Spending Review or other issues, please contact her on sophie.davis@crestadvisory.com

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What is the Spending Review and why does it matter?

In case you haven’t been paying attention, yesterday was the Government’s long awaited first Spending Review. For those less familiar with Whitehall jargon, Spending Reviews set out how much money government departments will have to deliver public services over the next few years. Specifically, they allocate what's known as Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL) — the part of public spending that can be planned in advance, and which covers around 40% of the total. DEL is split between day-to-day running costs (resource DEL) and longer-term capital investment (capital DEL).

Budgets for 2025/26 were set during what the Government called “phase one” of this review and announced alongside the 2024 Autumn Budget. “Phase two”, which was announced yesterday, set out plans for the years beyond. What’s different from previous years is the zero-based approach: rather than tweaking existing budgets, departments have been asked - for the first time in decades - to justify all spending from scratch. 

While this might all sound like a dry, technical process, in reality it’s deeply political. Spending Reviews are a test of a government’s priorities — and for Secretaries of State, an exercise in persuasion and positioning. Departments have been in active, and at times very public, negotiations with the Treasury for months, attempting to make the case for why their department’s budget needed to be increased.

Spending Reviews are important events for any Government, but this one arguably matters more than most. The Government is facing some difficult choices, struggling to reconcile strategic ambitions with the constraints of a tight fiscal environment. Politically, it’s an opportunity to re-set the dial with voters after what many have considered to be a difficult first year. 

What's at stake for the criminal justice system?

For the criminal justice system too, the stakes are high. We have said it before at Crest but the CJS is at a critical juncture. After years of underinvestment and mounting operational pressure, it is struggling to fulfil its most basic functions. Charge rates remain stubbornly low, victims are waiting longer to get justice in the courts, prisons are overcrowded and unsafe, and the probation service is struggling to reduce reoffending. These are not just bureaucratic failures — they are threats to public safety and trust. If this trajectory continues, the justice system risks not just inefficiency but erosion: of its legitimacy, its capacity, and its role as a foundation of a fair society. 

At the same time, the Government has set ambitious goals for public safety, with crime named as one of its five core missions. Both the Home Secretary and senior policing leaders have been clear in recent weeks about the scale of the challenge — and the cost of inaction. In a joint letter to the Prime Minister, Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, the National Police Chiefs Council Chair, Gavin Stephens, and the National Crime Agency Director-General, Graeme Biggar, warned that, without additional resources, forces would face “stark choices” about which crimes to deprioritise, let alone be able to achieve ambitious targets. In truth, many of those choices are already being made. Crest analysis shows that around 90% of bicycle thefts, vehicle crimes, and thefts from the person go unresolved — as do 75% of burglaries and 65% of robberies.

So - does the Spending Review lay the groundwork for delivering lasting public safety reform or is it just plugging the gap?

Is the CJS moving up the agenda?

The Home Office settlement is a mixed picture. The SR allocates £22.3 billion in departmental funding by 2028–29 - an average real-terms reduction of 2.2% across the period (and 1.4% over the next three years). Within this, however, police spending power will grow by 1.7% annually, to support the Government’s mission to make streets safer and put an additional 13,000 officers, PCSOs, and special constables into neighbourhood policing. This is achieved by relying on the Government being able to make £1bn’s worth of asylum-related savings - which remains a large and uncertain assumption - and likely increased precepts from local taxes. While increased police funding is welcome, police chiefs have been quick to point out that “in real terms, increases in funding will cover little more than annual inflationary pay increases for officers and staff”.

The Spending Review delivers better news to the justice system through the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) settlement. The MoJ will receive £15.6 billion in DEL funding by 2028-29, an average real-terms growth of 3.1% (or 2.4% excluding capital DEL). This uplift will underpin major reforms across prisons, probation, and courts. It includes £7 billion for 14,000 new prison places by 2031, and additional funding — up to £700 million annually — for probation to deliver reforms recommended in the Independent Sentencing Review (notably being able to supervise more offenders in the community). Courts will receive up to £450 million a year to tackle the backlog and improve productivity, in line with recommendations from the Independent Review of Criminal Courts.

Taken together, these settlements suggest that criminal justice may be climbing up the Government’s list of spending priorities. Beyond the numbers, there are also signs of greater joined-up thinking. At Crest, we’ve long argued that the justice system must be viewed as an interconnected whole — where pressure in one part quickly cascades across others, and costs can easily be passed from one agency to the other. This Review begins to reflect that reality. Investments in courts and probation, in particular, suggest a growing recognition that lasting improvement depends on addressing the system’s foundational weaknesses — not just firefighting symptoms.

A good start but does it match the scale of the Government's ambitions?

Yet despite these welcome moves, it’s far from clear that the Government has matched its investment with the scale — or coherence — of its ambition.  

There are gains, yes, but fragile ones. Justice and the Home Office remain unprotected departments, meaning rising inflation and demand will erode the real value of these settlements. Record prison populations, growing court backlogs, and mounting public expectations - from years of under-investment - all raise the bar for what this money must deliver. 

At the same time, both departments are expected to deliver at least 5% in savings from 2026–2029. For the MoJ, this will come through “technical efficiencies” — digital upgrades, back-office cuts, and streamlined administrative processes. The Home Office is expected to cut costs by reducing third-party contracts and insourcing digital functions. Much depends on these savings materialising — and on containing asylum-related costs. 

Even if these can be achieved, questions remain over whether the amounts allocated will enable the system to do more than just firefight. Will £450m for courts keep pace with rising caseloads, or merely slow the backlog’s growth? Can £700m for probation make sentencing reform work in practice — or will it be spread too thinly to make a lasting difference?

Neighbourhood policing is a case in point. Labour has pledged to allocate 13,000 officers and PCSOs to these roles — a policy seen as central to rebuilding community safety. Yet 2024 Crest modelling suggests that restoring the 2010 officer-to-population ratio would require 32,000 additional police personnel. If we factor in the increase in demand since 2010, the policing workforce would need to be closer to 320,000. 

The picture is even starker when it comes to violence against women and girls (VAWG) — Labour’s flagship public safety priority. The Government has committed to halving VAWG in a decade. Yet despite the rhetoric, outcomes remain bleak. Fewer than 3% of police-recorded rapes led to charges in 2024, and adult rape trials now take two years, on average, to reach court. These failures are not just technical: they erode public trust and retraumatise victims. Without significant investment — and reform — the mission to halve VAWG offences (one Crest has played a key role helping policing prepare for) looks unlikely to move from aspiration to reality.

Of all the Government’s missions, the crime agenda appears to have received the least resourcing relative to its ambition. While health and education remain protected, and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero secured a landmark win with substantial investment in Sizewell C, the settlements for the Home Office and Ministry of Justice are comparatively modest — and fragile. This is despite the fact that the crime mission involves some of the most complex and high-stakes delivery challenges: halving VAWG, restoring neighbourhood policing, and reversing declining trust in public safety institutions.

Is there a coherent plan behind the spending?

Beyond the headline figures, a key test for this Spending Review is whether investment in the criminal justice system reflects a coherent long-term strategy to improve outcomes — or merely a series of short-term fixes aimed at containing immediate pressures.

Take policing. The model of putting more officers “on the beat” remains politically attractive. Yet it sits uneasily with the realities of modern crime. Much of today’s serious offending takes place online, is transnational in nature, and requires complex, digitally-enabled investigation. New research from Crest, to be published in the coming weeks, shows that the previous police uplift of 20,000 officers had had only limited effects on outcomes. Redirecting resources into better technology, improving data-sharing across agencies, and enabling forces to pool specialist capabilities with a view to increasing productivity may yield greater returns than a narrow political focus on putting more boots on the ground. 

There are signs that the Government is recognising this. A White Paper on policing reform is expected shortly, as is a VAWG strategy — both potential vehicles for longer-term reform and cross-system planning. Investment in probation, in line with the recommendations of the Sentencing Review (our submission is here) also points to a more outcomes focused approach. But the strategy remains underdeveloped. What's still missing is a clear articulation of how different parts of the system will work together to deliver shared outcomes.

Even modest increases in spending are, in an undeniably tough fiscal environment, welcome - as is the growing appetite across parts of the system for serious reform. But the Government’s ambitions are significant - and ambition without alignment and adequate resourcing will not deliver meaningful or lasting change.

Ultimately, the test for this Spending Review is not just whether it plugs today’s gaps, but whether it lays the foundations for a criminal justice system that is coherent, resilient, and fit for the future. That will require more than incremental investment. It will take strategic clarity, outcome-focused funding, and bold reform.