Row breaks out over frontline police cuts (From The Northern Echo)
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Row breaks out over frontline police cuts
8:00am Friday 10th February 2012 in News
Figures show a sharp fall in the number of frontline police
NEW figures revealing a sharp fall in the number of “frontline” police officers across the region triggered a political row yesterday.
The statistics – showing 177 posts disappeared in the first 12 months of spending cuts – appeared to contradict David Cameron’s claim to be protecting frontline policing.
Meanwhile, Labour lashed out at what the Opposition called a £90m “bung” to help get London Mayor Boris Johnson re-elected, by boosting police spending in the capital.
The figures revealed that, in the North-East and North Yorkshire, twice as many frontline police jobs (177) have gone as back office posts (81).
The worst-hit force, comparing March 2010 with March last year, was Northumbria, which lost 72 crime-fighting officers – and only 13 doing administrative jobs.
Only the Cleveland force bucked the trend. It had 44 fewer back office staff, at the end of the first year of the spending squeeze, more than the 25 gone from the frontline.
Across England and Wales, nearly nine out of ten lost police jobs were from crimefighting roles (4,162) – rather than administrative ones (486) – according to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC).
The statistics are an embarrassment for the Prime Minister, who said last March: “There is no reason for there to be fewer frontline police officers.”
This week, Mr Cameron appeared to shift the goalposts, telling MPs: “The proportion of officers on the frontline is up.”
But Yvette Cooper, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, said: “The Prime Minister’s claim that the proportion of frontline officers has gone up was both wrong and out of touch.
“For a start, communities want to know about police numbers – not just the proportion on the frontline. The Government is cutting the police too far and too fast.”
Ms Cooper said Labour would have cut police budgets by 12 per cent, but not the 20 per cent imposed by the Coalition – which had cost the jobs of 16,000 police officers in total.
But Nick Herbert, the Policing Minister, said HMIC had predicted the proportion of officers in frontline roles would rise from 68 per cent in March 2010, to 70 per cent by March this year.
He added: “Labour aren’t being honest with the police or the public about their plans to cut police budgets. They are campaigning against cuts, while trying to hide their own plans for making savings of the same scale.”
Comments(4)
Big Nic
says...
12:04pm Fri 10 Feb 12
stevegg
says...
5:12pm Fri 10 Feb 12
Big Nic wrote:Quite true, beurocracy and the the do more for less culture (sanctioned by chief police officers who wont say no) is crippling the service. Trouble is social services defer all responsibility to the police unless its between 9-5 weekdays. They have a pitiful almost non existant out of hours /weekends service and will not accept any responsibility out of hours. The police, by their nature, cannot do this. The front line is being crippled despite all the spin, police officers on 24/7 response shifts are not being replaced when someone leaves placing more srain on those left, morale is non existant thanks to this and the recent police reforms which have seen frontline officers take huge pay cuts. They are constantly being given more and more responsibility by senior officers who do not care as long as they themselves are being made to look good and hit targets for which they receive huge bonuses. They should be telling the home office enough is enough and if they insist on cuts (which have largely been implemented) then police services must be reduced. You cant have it both ways.
Completely agree with GeordieB re the social workers comment, uniform officers spend 20 minutes dealing with a job and then over an hour filling out reports to outside agencies. Its about time they concentrated on 'law enforcement' and left the social work to those who are trained to do it.
Daza
says...
6:01pm Fri 10 Feb 12
It's all massive spin. Cameron and Co. Spouting off that 'Back Office' will be freed up so there will be more Officers, when plainly there won't!
Combine that with Chief Officers taking it all on the chin not wanting to speak out about cuts, and the general public think everything is hunky dory!
The decent law abiding general public are being lied to on all fronts! And to think there's another 3 years of cuts to go yet!
GeordieB says...
10:46am Fri 10 Feb 12
Check Twitter to see how many senior officer leg it to "conferences" off their patch every week. They're always talking about it.
It is time to get backsides out of meetings and on to the streets.