A PENSIONS timebomb that threatens to cripple frontline policing is likely to hit harder in the North-East than the rest of the country.

The police service faces a financial nightmare over its growing bill for pensions as the Government struggles to come to grips with the problem.

At a time when the public is demanding more officers on the street, the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) estimates forces are using an average of 15 per cent of their £8bn funding, about £1.2bn, on pensions.

But forces in the North-East are spending an average of 16.68 per cent of their budget on pensions, with the North Yorkshire constabulary already at 21 per cent.

With forces now paying about a fifth of their annual revenue on retired officers, police chiefs are worried front-line operations will be increasingly hit as the Home Office and the Treasury wrestle with the problem.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Police, which predicts it will be forced to pay out 30 per cent of the budget on pensions by 2007, said the Government has to tackle the looming crisis as a matter of urgency.

He said: "We have been pressing the Government to do something about this for years, but nothing has happened. We are now in the position where we have more pensioners than serving officers - that's around 14,000 each.

"Now a fifth of the budget is set before you even get it. This has a knock-on effect on the rest of the force."

Cleveland sets aside 15 per cent of its £99m budget for pensions, while County Durham spends 12.9 per cent and Northumbria 17.8.

The budget increase is expected to really bite in five or six years' time, when officers who signed up in an expansion of the service in the late 1970s take their retirement.

John Giffard, the chief constable of Staffordshire and an Acpo spokesman on pensions, said: "Cleveland was always very high, as is North Yorkshire which is probably about the highest in the country.

"It will get worse in 2008/9 when there will be a real bulge in the figures. It is a big strategic issue and the Government is working on a new pension scheme.

"Something has to give. I would personally prefer a separate pension budget away from the operational one."