Police savings threaten jobs

May 28 2010 by Adrian Pearson, The Journal

POLICE cuts are expected in the North East after the new coalition Government wipes more than £6m off regional force budgets.

Police Minister Nick Herbert said the money will come out of police budgets as part of £367m in Home Office savings. He revealed forces across England and Wales will lose 1.5% of their total Government funding.

Chief constables were already braced for cutbacks before the new coalition formed and made cutting the budget deficit its top priority.

Northumbria Police will lose £3.5m from day to day running costs, with Durham and Cleveland losing £1.3m each.

Peter Thompson, chair of Durham Police Authority, said that while it was too early to say what the staff implications would be, difficult decisions were now expected.

He added: “It will be very hard to achieve. The first thing we want to do is to say we will look to protect front line officers but it is not a guarantee.

“Like most public services, the bill revolves around wages so it is inevitable that we will at least look at this.” Mr Thompson said he believed Durham had lost out since the new Government was formed and announced it would not now be bringing identity card production to the county.

He said: “It was not so long ago the now Deputy PM Nick Clegg was here saying that if identity cards are scrapped and people in Durham lose out on that work then the money would be redirected into frontline services. Now we found ourselves having to find money to save instead.

“We in County Durham and Darlington have suffered quite a bit as a result of coalition decisions.”

In a statement issued by Northumbria Police, temporary Chief Constable Sue Sim said the force would try to avoid cuts to front line policing.

Without ruling out the move, she said: “In line with other public sector organisations, we are aware we need to respond to the increasingly challenging financial climate in a planned and measured way.

“We have been looking closely at what we do to ensure we are delivering the very best value for money.”

Mick Henry, chair of Northumbria Police Authority said: “We are, of course, disappointed that the Home Office is proposing to cut the Authority's grant by £3.5m and the capital grant by £300,000.

“The authority has robust financial planning in place and we will consider this proposal at our next meeting and start to look at the impact and potential options.”