Police chief warns of job cuts crime rise

Crime could rise if hundreds of police jobs are axed under controversial Government budget cuts, a chief constable warned today.

Ian Learmonth, of Kent Police, said a 20% cut in funding of the force could lead to a loss of £53 million over the next four years.

The impact of such cuts could send the force's staff and officer numbers back to levels not seen since 2001, he told BBC Radio Kent.

Mr Learmonth said: "When you look at our budget, 84% of it is people - police officers and police staff. You cannot achieve the savings with the remaining 16% so we are immediately into people."

Mr Learmonth, who joined Kent Police as chief constable in July, added: "The cuts, if they are 20%, will take us back to 2001 so that's quite a significant drawback into police numbers.

"Clearly there is a potential impact that crime will rise."

How deep the cuts will be will not be fully known until the Government completes its comprehensive spending review at the end of October.

But Mr Learmonth, whose force employs 3,728 officers and 2,932 civilian staff, said it was important to plan now ahead of the final announcement.

He told BBC Radio Kent: "I have never offered any guarantees on protecting police officer and police staff numbers because you can't do that with the size of the cuts we are facing.

"What we have said is my focus is on our ability to deliver frontline, front-end policing to the community of Kent."

In a message to officers and staff this week, he said all areas of the force's budget and business were being scrutinised for savings.

Describing the challenges as "unprecedented" in his 36 years of police service, Mr Learmonth said he hoped the majority of job losses would come through natural wastage and retirement.

But Ian Pointon, of the Kent Police Federation, said policing should be ring-fenced from any cuts. He said: "This is going to have an impact on the policing in Kent and the people need to wake up to that fact."

Budget cuts for policing could result in the loss of up to 60,000 jobs nationwide in a worst-case scenario, according to recent research for Jane's Police Review magazine.

Unions warned crime would soar if police and civilian jobs were axed, but the Government dismissed the prediction as speculation and said it wanted to protect frontline services.

Earlier this week Julie Spence, chief constable of Cambridgeshire Police, warned forces would face "Armageddon" if ministers imposed funding cuts as high as 40%.

Speaking as she prepared to retire after five years as Cambridgeshire's chief constable and 32 years as a police officer, she said: "If the Government pushed through 40% cuts, there would be a drastic reduction in service. There is no other way you could do it.

"It would be Armageddon. The police service you see today would not be the police service you would see in the future.

"It could even be retrenched to a 999 emergency service. That is not what a modern police service should be and not what society wants."

Peter Saville, of Unison, said the cuts would create even more uncertainty for police officers and staff in uncertain economic times.

He said: "If you abstract these staff out of the day-to-day business of the organisation, someone has got to do some of those roles, so that may be an impact on police officers doing those roles possibly."