PSNI Budget

Request Number: FOI/15211

Category: Organisational Information – Finance

Subject: PSNI Budget

Request and Answer: 
Your request for information has now been considered. In respect of Section 1(1)(a) of the Act we can confirm that the Police Service of Northern Ireland does hold information to which your request relates. The decision has been taken to disclose the following.

Request 1
What is the PSNIs annual budget?

Answer
PSNI’s annual budget for the current financial year 2025/2026 is £929,701,000 Resource.  The PSNI capital budget for 2025/2026 is £63,070,000. This is after the June monitoring round.  The PSNI budget may change again after the next monitoring round.

Request 2
What percentage of said budget, per annum is specifically used for the running of the Drug Squad? 

Answer
The PSNI no longer operates a “drugs squad”. Organised Crime Groups (OCG’s) in 2025 are involved in multiple crime types (paramilitary crime, cyber-crime, money laundering, human trafficking and exploitation), so Organised Crime Branch has adapted its teams to counter those threats; focusing on specific OCG’s rather than individual crime types. Teams within Organised Crime Branch investigate groups across the entire province, none are limited solely to Belfast. For that reason it would not be possible to calculate how much time or what percentage of its budget is spent solely on drug related activity.

Request 3
What percentage of said budget, per annum is used in the investigation of drugs, drug crime in Belfast city centre?

Answer
A number of teams are responsible for drug enforcement activity in Belfast city centre, these teams investigate a number of crime types and not solely drugs. District policing units (uniformed Police) such as Local Policing Teams (LPT), Neighbourhood Policing Teams (NPT) and District Support Teams (DST) all carry out drug enforcement work in addition to other roles. Additionally officers from Operational Support Department such as Roads Policing Unit (RPU) and Tactical Support Group (TSG) will periodically assist district colleagues in Belfast, sometimes but not limited to drug enforcement work. For similar reasons to those laid out in question 2, it would not be possible to accurately calculate how much officer time or what percentage of their budget is spent on drug enforcement within Belfast.