Police jobs at risk as spending review looms

The force will find out how much its budget will be cut by following the government’s autumn spending review.

Other forces have begun announcing cost-saving strategies to cut staff numbers, with West Midlands Police saying more than 2,000 jobs could be at risk.

A spokesman for Bedfordshire Police said: “We are waiting for the budget at the moment to see how much it’s going to affect us. As we are in the process of collaborating more with Hertfordshire Police we can’t give a figure.”

Earlier this year, Bedfordshire’s Chief Constable Gillian Parker warned that many jobs could be lost because of the huge funding gap faced by the force.

Speaking prior to the attempt to merge Bedfordshire Police and Hertfordshire Police, she said that if the forces did not amalgamate, they faced “substantial budget cuts and deterioration of service”.

But the merger was rejected by the Hertfordshire Police Authority, and the two forces are now continuing their programme of ‘collaboration’ on a range of different departments.

Mrs Parker said that police staff posts would have to go in order to protect police officer posts, and that the force had “been talking to civilian staff for the last 12 months about job cuts”.

She said: “There will be drops in police officer numbers, no doubt about that. But we are seeking to preserve neighbourhood policing.

“We’ve said loud and clear that we recognise that visible neighbourhood policing is what people care about, and we would protect that as far as we possibly can.”

The decision to pursue extended collaboration with Hertfordshire would make some savings, she said, but the force would still face a “substantial financial gap”.

Bedfordshire Police is one of the smallest forces in the country, and faces a budget gap of £15 million by 2014, substantially more than the £11 milion that had been predicted.

“The majority of the money is spent on people,” said Mrs Parker. “Financial cuts will mean cuts in service delivery and performance.”

The force has embarked on a cost-cutting strategy called ‘Programme 2011’, she said, which would generate £3.7 million of savings through internal restructuring.

But even with that reduction in costs, the force would still face a financial gap of £9 million.

Insisting spending cuts would have a huge impact on the force, she said: “I don’t think Bedfordshire can survive going into the future, and it won’t be alone.”

Concerns have been raised that police job cuts would put the public at risk, with Unison criticising the plans by West Midlands police. Many important roles such as 999 operators, forensic investigators and intelligence analyts were carried out by civilian staff, the union said.