PCCs warn police numbers will fall below 100,000
POLICE and crime commissioners across England and Wales fear that police officer numbers will fall below 100,000 by 2019/20 and that criminals will feel safer as a result.
In a submission ahead of the Government’s 2015 Comprehensive Spending Review – coming in November – the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners said that “budget cuts will radically change policing.”
The organisation said the service “will have to make fundamental changes to how it is structured and the role it carries out”.
It says policing “will need to reassess its role, and the expectations from communities”.
A statement said: “Police and Crime Commissioners recognise that budget reductions are necessary to play their part in reducing public spending and have made significant savings and improvement in productivity while still keeping communities safe from crime.
“However, with reductions in staff levels and support services already made, further budget constraints will lead to difficult questions on how best to structure police forces to respond to changes in crime and what this would mean for the local service provided to the public.”
Part of its submission states: “Some PCCs and Forces have had no option but to reduce Police presence in some communities at certain times of the day, or to accept less than 100% response, particularly at peak periods.
“Strategies such as this can seriously and dangerously undermine respect for law and order. The result could be that criminals feel safer, while communities feel less safe.”
With the falling police staff numbers the organisation said it fears more police officers going into back office roles.
Paddy Tipping, Nottinghamshire Police and Crime Commissioner, said: “The police service cannot respond to these challenges alone, and other sectors and industries will have to work with us to share the responsibility to respond to changes in crime.
“With more savings needed there will need to be a fundamental rethink on how we are organised, the service we offer the public, and the roles and skills needed.”
PCCs said they would like to “work with the Government” on minimising the impact of budget reductions.
Ways they want to do this include greater freedom to set local Council Tax plans, “more flexible approaches to income generation”, stronger powers for PCCs to promote cross sector working and the protection of current grants for community safety and victim support.