POLICE officers were publicly humiliated over their controversial former chief constable's plans for an office shower, it has been revealed.

Grahame Maxwell, the present Chief Constable of North Yorkshire Police, said that when the story of his predecessor's £24,000 office refurbishment hit the headlines last year, officers were demoralised by the actions of members of the public, who handed them shower caps in the pub.

Mr Maxwell, who also revealed the force will soon be facing a budget deficit of £5.3m, took over from Della Cannings last month.

In his first in-depth interview, he said: "I think officers got sick of people handing them shower caps in the pub. It does become demoralising, but it sickens people more so than demotivating them."

An inquiry later cleared Ms Cannings.

Last year, the force was also in the spotlight after accumulating £34m of reserves. Police chiefs reduced the figure by £6m and have a plan to cut the figure from £34m to £9.4m by 2012.

The majority of the money has been earmarked for buildings, cars and improvements to the force's communication system.

Mr Maxwell said the predicted £5.3m deficit was down to the way the force is funded, with money coming from the council tax precept and the Government.

"North Yorkshire gets a bigger proportion than most forces from the local precept," he said.

"But the difficulty is that Government gives us a 2.2 per cent increase, when generally inflation is running about three per cent to 3.5 per cent."

But he said the predicted deficit would not mean large increases in the police's proportion of the council tax. Instead, savings would be made by improving efficiency.

"Before we do anything, we have got to make sure that every pound we spend is well spent delivering the best possible service," he said.

"I am going to do a full capacity and capability review, which will look at things like if we have got the right people in the right place, if the right number of officers have got a rank and if the headquarters are too big.

"I call it the three R's - rationalise, re-engineer and restructure to make sure we deliver the best service we can."