Chancellor George Osborne has been told off by the official statistics watchdog - after he cut funding for police forces despite promising not to.
Central government funding for West Midlands Police is being cut by £2.4 million this year.
And funding for for West Mercia Police is to be cut by £629,623, while funding for Warwickshire Police is cut by £278,047. Staffordshire Police funding is increasing by £46,090.
But Mr Osborne appeared to promise there would be no cuts at all, when he spoke in the House of Commons last year.
The Chancellor had been under pressure to protect police budgets from MPs - including some Conservative MPs as well as Labour politicians - who warned that police had already been forced to make savings thanks to budget cuts over the past five years.
And the terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13 last year, when 130 people were killed, also highlighted the importance of having effective police forces.
So Mr Osborne was greeted by cheers from Tory MPs when he delivered his Spending Review statement in the House of Commons on November 25 and appeared to suggest there would be no cuts to police funding.
He said: “Now is the time to back our police and give them the tools do the job.
“I am today announcing there will be no cuts in the police budget at all. There will be real terms protection for police funding. The police protect us, and we’re going to protect the police.”
But figures were later published showing that there would in fact be cuts to funding from central government. The figures show funding for the 2016-17 financial year, which begins on April 1, is lower for most police forces than it was for the year before.
The Home Office argues that there will in fact be no cut in total police budgets once the effect of the police precept, a local tax which is added on to council tax, is taken into account.
And Mr Osborne has changed the rules to allow Police and Crime Commissioners to increase the precept by up to £5 a year. Previously, the biggest increase they could impose was 1.99%, which in some cases is less than £5.
Sir Andrew Dilnot, the Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, has now ruled that the Chancellor did not make himself clear.
He said “more could have been done to provide greater clarity” about how the government calculated its figures.
Read more: West Midlands Police loses than 350 police officers in just 12 months
Sir Andrew was responding to a request to examine the data which came from Andy Burnham, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary.
Mr Burnham pointed out that the Chancellor was set to deliver his Budget statement to the Commons on March 16.
The Shadow Home Secretary said: “On the eve of his Budget, this is a highly embarrassing rebuke for the Chancellor.
“He personally promised Police forces that their budgets would be protected. We now know that that is not the case.”
Mr Burnham added: “Next week, he should apologise to the House, correct the record and find extra money to honour his promise.”
Labour also says police funding is falling in “real terms” because even when the effect of the precept is taken into account, police funding is not keeping up with growth in GDP, the overall size of the economy.
Read more: Police funding cuts blamed for rise in gun and violent crime
The impact of funding cuts on police forces was highlighted by Birmingham Erdington's Labour MP Jack Dromey in the House of Commons. He said: “In the previous Parliament there were cuts of 25% cuts. In this Parliament, we have already had the broken promise from the Government that they will protect budgets, as £160 million in real terms will be cut in the next year.”
“The public are being asked to pay more for less.”
Minister for Policing, Fire, Criminal Justice and Victims, Mike Penning said: "Police reform is working and crime has fallen by more than a quarter since 2010, according to the independent crime survey for England and Wales.
"The chair of the UK statistics authority is clear in his letter that the figures referenced by the Opposition only relate to the element of police funding which is set out in the annual Police Grant Report. They exclude key elements of police funding including police precept, worth over £3 billion, as well as reallocations for national policing priorities and the Police Transformation Fund.
"As the Chancellor set out in the Autumn Statement, overall police spending will be protected in real terms. Police Spending will increase from nearly £11.4 billion this year to £12.3 billion at the end of the Spending Review period. This is an increase of just under 8 per cent, or £900m in cash terms, and a protection in real terms over the course of this Parliament — if Police and Crime Commissioners maximise their precept. Full detail is provided in the Written Ministerial Statement that accompanied the Provisional Police Grant Report in December.”
"This settlement is not a reprieve from reform, it does not let forces off the hook or allow them to slow the pace of change. Every force will still need to make savings year on year by putting an end to wasteful and inefficient spending.
"We will provide substantial additional investment over the period in transformation funding, to improve police capabilities to deal with modern threats like terrorist firearms attacks, cyber crime and other emerging threats.”
