Humberside defends cuts

Humberside Police said it is doing everything possible to re-deploy “displaced people” into new roles and to keep compulsory redundancy to an absolute minimum, in response to concerns raised by Unison.

Chief Constable Justine Curran said last week (October 9) that the force has been open about the impact budget cuts will have, including the loss of around 500 police staff.

“By stripping out layers of bureaucracy, creating a large flexible team of staff, harnessing new technology and focusing our resources in the areas and at the times of greatest need, we are confident that we can maintain our service to the public and continue to make a real difference in our communities,” she said.

“These changes will mean named officers and police community support officers continuing to work in communities, 100 extra officers on shift over any given 24-hour period and detectives working together with neighbourhood officers in our communities.

“Now we are in the implementation phase of our plans we recognise that this is a very difficult time for our staff. We are working with staff associations to do our best to re-deploy displaced people.”

She said that operational changes will impact on police staff in other ways, including the change to shift patterns, which mean officers and staff will have fewer weekends off.

“We know this is difficult and we are doing our best to mimimise the impact,” said Ms Curran. “That said, we make no apologies for putting the public first. Our drivers for change are modernisation, efficiency and providing the best possible service – the public must always come first.”

Unison, which represents police staff, said budget cuts will make delivering an effective policing service in Humberside difficult.

Branch secretary Harry Berry said: “The tasks police staff do, have to be done. Many of these tasks are frontline. Once you remove those staff it means that police officers are going to have to back fill those posts.”