GWENT Police will see their Home Office grant increase by £2.2 million - 3.25 per cent - next year, it was announced yesterday.

This will take the grant for the force up to £71.8 million for the year 2004 to 2005.

But chief officers at Gwent Police have been calling for an increase of around £13.2 million in order to get the 400 extra members of staff they say are needed if the force were to have any hope of fighting rising crime.

Deputy Chief Constable Bryan Davies said earlier this month that they were attempting to deal with 30,000 more incidents this year than in 1998 with the same amount of staff.

David Ansell, the force's finance director, said today: "This is better than we thought it was going to be, but it's still not enough.

"Paying for next year's pay awards and inflation will take up the whole of that 3.25 per cent.

"On top of that we've got increasing pension costs and miscellaneous things.

"The current pressures would require an increase of about 7.8 per cent. "If you start talking about extra staff, in crude terms 400 extra staff would cost £10 million a year. That would have to be phased in over three or four years."

As well as the grant increase, Home Secretary David Blunkett also announced specific additional funding for certain police authorities. Gwent will get:

£201,000 for tackling the problems faced by rural communities. A share of a special national grant of £50 million, which will be allocated to forces to target front-line policing at basic command unit level. A share of £25 million will also be available to the forces most affected by street crime.

Other key funding streams will maintain police officer numbers, tackle drug-related crime, boost counter-terrorism work, fund support officers, and help the service to reform and modernise.

The Home Office will also spend £706 million on funding major elements of police communications and IT, science and technology facilities, training, the National Crime Squad and the National Criminal Intelligence Service.