Fund Communities (not policing)

This is Manchester, we WANT to do things differently

This week people everywhere around the country will start to pay their new council tax bills, and a proportion of those payments will directly fund local police forces. Here in Manchester groups are working to oppose increases to council tax to fund policing, arguing that any increases should fund communities.

Overview:

The Manchester Women’s Justice Collective (MWJC) is made up of women and girls who have/are surviving the violence of policing, prisons, borders, mental health and social care systems. We are a community in defiant pursuit of justice. Setting out to build a collective outside state structures in recognition that reforming existing systems does not and will not get us justice. We must dismantle and rebuild anew.

Several people who came to found MWJC in 2023 were involved in a community event centred on the experiences women and girls have of policing that sparked the action that led to our collective being created. This event, and our work since, not only identifies the harm that women and girls face from policing, but explores what could replace this system of violence, control, and punishment.

NPMP and the Council Tax Policing Precept:

Within our collective we have members of Manchester based police monitoring group: Northern Police Monitoring Project (NPMP) an independent abolitionist organisation working to build community resistance to police violence, harassment and racism. For some years now, NPMP have been working to oppose the annual Council Tax Policing Precept, which sees council tax bills increased to raise funds for local police forces, in our context this is Greater Manchester Police (GMP). If you look at your council tax bill you will see a specific line that shows how much of your council tax is being given directly to your local police force.

NPMP’s work in the past had been mobilising people to engage with the Greater Manchester Combined Authorities public consultation around the precept, and to VOTE NO, in the hopes that the Police Fire and Crime Panel – a panel made up of elected officials (mainly local councillors) which is supposed to scrutinise policing and represent the voices of community members – would take note of the consistent majority votes against the council tax increase.

Yet despite the majority of the public voting against, and the attendance at the vote meeting by people opposed, the panel always votes to approve the increase council tax bills to funnel more money into policing.

There’s a famous quote from Mancunian Tony Wilson ‘This is Manchester. We do things different here’, it’s often used by political leaders to drive public support but the use of the phrase rings hollow in this area, because when it comes to the governance of our city region and its attitudes and approaches to policing, Greater Manchester does not do things differently, it refuses to even consider anything other than a commitment to policing and its growth and control.

Fund Communities (not policing):

In December 2025, NPMP became aware that the precept would generate £14.4m in funding for GMP, increasing their annual budget for 2026/2027 to over £900m. They invited MWJC, and 4 other community organisations to delve deeper into the work around the precept, and identify alternative ways that any increases could be invested into communities as a response to issues that people face.

We, alongside NPMP and the other groups, worked together to create, publish a community resource and host a launch event for ‘Fund Communities (not policing)’ in which we present cases for doing things differently. Each group provides an overview of their work/the issues they work around, what investment in the community could look like and the impact it could have, and a cost analysis.

This community resource has and introduction written by NPMP and then 5 chapters written by contributing groups:

• ‘A Living Income’ by Greater Manchester Living Income Campaign
• ‘Real Justice’ by Manchester Women’s Justice Collective
• ‘Housing for Everyone’ by Migrant Justice Manchester
• ‘Beautiful Lives’ by Kids of Colour
• ‘Community Centred’ by a grassroots Manchester based neighbourhood project and community centre

The launch event was well received by community, with interest from across the movement locally and community members. There was shock when it was identified that less than 2% of GMPs budget could fully fund the community centre involved for 47 years!

We hope to continue to build, with others, a stronger narrative around alternatives to policing and engage on a journey to find concrete examples of work already taking place and engage with communities about their opinions of why we should defund the police and invest in community led/moulded infrastructure and responses and what they should look like.

You can read and download the resource from NPMP’s website.

Real Justice

For generations women have been told what exists constitutes support and meaningful intervention. But women need support that understands and responds to their lives as girls, women and mothers — and that centres on delivering justice, real justice. Not justice rooted in punitive responses and punishment via the criminal legal system, but justice that recognises a woman’s humanity: the nuance of her life, the needs she has, the care she provides, the violence she survives, the barriers she overcomes, the work she puts in, and the care that she needs.

When more money goes directly into communities, women can develop solutions for women. Local community organisations have shown that by creating safe spaces for girls and women experiencing abuse, with a focus on building them up and on reducing isolation, women can both survive and resist domestic abuse.

Manchester Women’s Justice Collective have been creating spaces where girls and women can build individual, family, and community power is what works, as evidenced by grassroots and community-led projects across Greater Manchester, many of which are part of our collective and are already building alternative infrastructures that respond, support and intervene.

£14.4m is a HUGE amount of money – instead of increased funding for police it could fund communities across Manchester. It could fund a wide range of vital spaces for girls and women, have an appreciable impact on the lives of women experiencing violence and harm, and further strengthen an already brilliant ecosystem — ranging from grassroots spaces for women to come together in community, to high quality therapeutic support for women to heal and grow, and refuges and community projects that support women in moments of crisis and through growth and resistance to violence.

Small scale organisations – £1m could fund 100 local social and wellbeing groups to provide spaces to reduce social isolation, build intergenerational links, and peer support.

Medium scale – £3m could fund the salaries of 30 therapists (£50k) and 42 community based support workers (£35k), providing women with the support they need to heal and rebuild their lives.

Large scale delivery services – £10m could provide 10 refuge and community type projects with £1m running costs each.