Bedfordshire Police could be denied a bid to raise its share of council tax by an inflation-busting 9.6 per cent.

Local Government minister John Healey has given the county's Police Authority 21 days to make its case.

If the force, dubbed Britain's worst earlier this year, fails to convince Whitehall that local taxpayers should have to dig deep into their pockets, its budget could be capped to around a five per cent hike.

Bedfordshire Police is also asking for a 5.3 per cent increase in the funding it receives from the Government.

Peter Conniff, chairman of Bedfordshire Police Authority, defended the proposed increases.

He said: "We firmly believe we have a strong argument for maintaining the proposed precept and will argue our position robustly.

"As we have repeatedly said, the authority has lost approximately £4m per annum since 2006/07 due to changes made by the Government to its funding formula. In a bid to provide the resources necessary to improve policing performance we made the decision to ask local taxpayers to invest in local policing, as a one-off investment.

"This is in line with our public consultation which confirmed that the majority of those questioned were willing to pay an increase of 11 per cent or more towards policing."