Police and Crime Commissioner, David Lloyd, to cut police posts

12:00pm Monday 21st January 2013 in News Photograph of the Author By Ben Endley, Senior reporter

More than 130 police officers and staff are set to be cut in Hertfordshire as part of the Police and Crime Commissioner’s first budget.

Councillor David Lloyd is proposing to freeze the budget precept for 2013/14 while making £6.3 million of spending cuts.

The budget anticipates the loss of 60 police officer posts and 76 police staff posts during the next financial year.

This would reduce the number of officers working in the county to 1,900 and the number of staff to 1,762.

Councillor Lloyd said: "The Constabulary finances are in a healthy position. Our savings plans are well developed, we have a high level of reserves and performance is strong against all significant measures.

"There is no justification for seeking a further council tax increase from the public to maintain high quality policing in Hertfordshire."

A percentage of these officer posts will be lost from crime investigation roles which is losing £350,000 from its budget, while savings will also be made in intelligence support, in the control room and through collaboration with other forces.

He added: "We are a low crime county with effective police action to catch criminals and maintain low crime levels.

"This has been due in part to a consistent approach built over a number of years; I have no wish to disrupt that.

"Over time I will want to adjust priorities to ensure that the actions of the constabulary are even better focused on the needs of the Hertfordshire public.

"However, given the short time that I have been in post I do not think it would be the right time to enact fundamental change in policing."

A further £1.8 million of savings is to be made from slashing back office functions including HR, ICT, estates and finance, areas that could be outsourced to a private company.

The authority must make £36 million of savings by 2015.

The proposed budget will be discussed at the Hertfordshire Police Crime Panel meeting on Thursday (January 24).

Comments(10)

thomas.howard says...
12:12pm Mon 21 Jan 13

Could a saving be made from the PCCs salary rather productive officers?

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Mohandas says...
12:50pm Mon 21 Jan 13

at a time where we are constantly reminded we need to get value for money, this gov't found over £100 million to pay for an election which they knew was meaningless as shown by the total lack of electioneering effort and the lowest recorded voter turnout which questions the legitimacy of the post. I predict we are in for a new round of creative accounting with the crime figures to justify the cut in front line officers.

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crazyfrog says...
12:56pm Mon 21 Jan 13

so its not enough that they have sold off police stations including Rickmansworth they are now cutting police officers !

when are the general public going to learn that the Tories simply cannot be trusted with important public services?
privatise,privatise,
privatise thats all these people think about, but think about this if privatisation is so good why are our energy bills huge? why did those privatiesed hospitals fail leaving NHS trusts over the country in debt, why did the part privasation of the tube fail leaving billions of ££s of debt?? why has the government now got to spend billions on rail infrastructure? why have new schools got to be built in our area? because services are sold off or privatised and any profits made are not sunk back into the relevant services infrastructure but sucked out divided up and given to shareholders and top salary executives ! The reason british rail was privatised was due to the year on year reduction in investment by the tories untill the system was broken and people had enough then they could privatise it! they are doing the same with the NHS ! they will do the same with as many public services as possible!!! run them into the ground by starving them of investment so they get the remit to privatise, meanwhile we pay top dollar for decreasing services
oh and dont go tarring me as labour or libdem supporter i think all the mainstream parties are useless on an equal scale, politics in our country has a major problem !

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E.Coli says...
1:10pm Mon 21 Jan 13

why do the police that park in Well Stones leave their engines running with no one in them while they have breakfast at Mc Donald's there were 3 today. That's what I call saving money well done lads.

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slipperyone says...
1:27pm Mon 21 Jan 13

Didn't take the torie PCC long to start attacking Police numbers. Surely if the voice of the public, who he serves shouted loud enough he won't cut numbers. Oh but his is a torie and they don't listen or care what we the public want.

Watch this space. Less police means response times increase, crime goes up and few officers to investigate offence's.

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Andrew1963 says...
1:50pm Mon 21 Jan 13

"Over time I will want to adjust priorities to ensure that the actions of the constabulary are even better focused on the needs of the Hertfordshire public." - Who was the chair of the old police committee who got all the priorities wrong in the first place then?

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LSC says...
2:22pm Mon 21 Jan 13

"We are a low crime county with effective police action to catch criminals and maintain low crime levels."

So that's all right then. As long as there is somewhere worse off than ourselves, everything must be fine. Why not just go the whole way and compare us with Detroit. That way, statistically, we wouldn't need any police at all.

Politicians running the police, and doesn't it show already.

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MarsLander says...
5:33pm Mon 21 Jan 13

Cuts needn't be a bad thing.

The trouble is, I don't trust the PCC to do what's right, just what's Tory.

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garston tony says...
12:43pm Tue 22 Jan 13

LSC wrote:
"We are a low crime county with effective police action to catch criminals and maintain low crime levels." So that's all right then. As long as there is somewhere worse off than ourselves, everything must be fine. Why not just go the whole way and compare us with Detroit. That way, statistically, we wouldn't need any police at all. Politicians running the police, and doesn't it show already.
You made no sense LSC, just because he states we are a low crime county doesnt mean he thinks we dont need a police force.

It sounds like he is cutting costs in mostly back room functions which can either take it or be outsourced or be done in partnership with other surrounding police forces. Very sound way to go

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LSC says...
4:21pm Tue 22 Jan 13

garston tony wrote:
LSC wrote:
"We are a low crime county with effective police action to catch criminals and maintain low crime levels." So that's all right then. As long as there is somewhere worse off than ourselves, everything must be fine. Why not just go the whole way and compare us with Detroit. That way, statistically, we wouldn't need any police at all. Politicians running the police, and doesn't it show already.
You made no sense LSC, just because he states we are a low crime county doesnt mean he thinks we dont need a police force.

It sounds like he is cutting costs in mostly back room functions which can either take it or be outsourced or be done in partnership with other surrounding police forces. Very sound way to go
Try reading the article before just having your usual pop at me. 60 front line police officers and 76 back room staff to be cut. So ok, 16 more in the offices.
Who is going to take up the slack in the office work? Front liners, which means even less time 'out there' for real coppers.

Read 'Wasting Police Time' by PC Copperfield. It will depress you, but it will also enlighten you.

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