MoD Police warns of effects of budget cuts

OFFICERS from the Ministry of Defence Police are working at “full capacity” to protect MoD assets and further cuts will affect national security, the head of the force’s federation has warned.

Chairman of the Defence Police Federation,. Eamon Keating, said the existing 2,600 MDP officers could be cut by another 15% following November’s Strategy Defence Security Review.

Mr Keating told the Federation’s annual conference: “There is no more fat to trim”.

“The prospect of further reductions to the number of MDP officers is a matter the Federation views with concern. For the last five years we have operated at the very limits of our resources.

“We should not be immune from the requirements of savings and efficiency, but we have already done more with less.

“It is impossible to imagine how an even smaller workforce could meet the demands of the MoD if these remain the same.

“We are reliant on officers working beyond expectations, including them having to work substantial amounts of overtime to ensure the security of the MoD’s estate and assets. And it has affected our ability to train and maintain training standards.”

He added: “We cannot do more with less.”

Mr Keating also warned against proposals to pass responsibility for guarding MoD assets to the Army.

He added: “The MDP is the best-trained and best-able workforce to do the job we do. Ours is a unique workforce within the MoD, one unlike any other security provider.

“And the fact is this: the MoD estate and the critical national infrastructure – including the nuclear deterrent – is more secure because our officers are in place to guard and secure it because of the experience of our workforce, our training and firearms capability.

“We have enormous respect for our colleagues in the Armed Forces, but it is simply not the case that every member of the Armed Forces is trained to the level of these police officers.”