Warning over losing 30,000 more police officers
NEARLY 30,000 police officers could be axed from the police service it has been warned.
More than 17,000 police officer jobs have gone from the service since 2010, but another 29,900 police officers and 6,700 police and community support officers could go by 2020, according to reports. South Yorkshire Police has lost 600 police officers with more feared to be going.
The planned reductions would take the number of officers in England and Wales to well below levels in the 1970s, when there were 108,000.
Neil Bowles, Chairman of South Yorkshire Police Federation, said: “We cannot lose any more officers or else we will just not be able to provide the service to the public. If we lose any more officers, we will be unable to keep the public safe and we will be unable to keep ourselves safe.
“We want to be able to investigate crimes. It is becoming an absolute nightmare. The next government must reevaluate its spending priorities.”
Losing another 30,000 would mean police officer numbers would have been cut by a third over 10 years, from 144,000 to just 96,500.
New figures from the House of Commons library show that if Tory spending cuts announced in last year’s autumn statement –which would lead to public spending falling to just 35% of GDP –were applied equally across un-ringfenced departments, they bringing the ratio of officers to population to its lowest level since records began.
The Labour Party said the cuts would be the death knell for neighbourhood policing and risk a surge in crime and even terrorism.
Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper,said: “A further 30,000 officers could be lost, the equivalent of almost the entire Metropolitan Police force.”
Sir Hugh Orde, outgoing president of ACPO, said policing is nearing a ‘tipping point’if resources continue to be reduced.
He warned that Britain would no longer be able adequately to protect the public from criminals and the growing threat of homegrown terrorists if the Conservatives push through their plans to cut further into police numbers.
Sir Hugh claimed that under Tory plans to take another 20% from the police budget on re-election, the risk to citizens would rise “exponentially”.
He said: “The notion that you can take money out of policing and numbers out of policing without increasing the risk exponentially is flawed. The question is, where is the tipping point? My sense is that it is getting very close.
“The bit I struggle with is when spending on police is 0.89% of public expenditure, if you take 26% out of that, and then another 20% out, there is a question about the state’s responsibility for citizens’security. I think that will need to be seriously considered by whoever comes to power.”