Staffs police chief's vow as force faces £30m cuts

Staffordshire Police Chief Constable Mike Cunningham today vowed to protect front line officers as he faced the prospect of up to £30 million of cuts to the force's budget.

The exact size of the Government cuts to the Staffordshire Police budget will not be revealed until October, but it has been warned to expect a reduction of up to 25 per cent in its central grant.

Mr Cunningham said: "I will strain every sinew to preserve the front line deployment of officers but will be looking very critically at everything else.

"In the worst case scenario we face £30m of cuts over four years but we simply do not know definitively.

"The public want officers to be visible and accessible — they want the phone answered quickly; they want officers responding to those calls quickly and they want incidents detected and resolved.

"That is what I will be focusing on."

Mr Cunningham said he would look to achieve the job losses through natural wastage but has not ruled out the possibility of enforced redundancies.

He added: "It is up to the Government to provide sufficient money for a police force to do its job and it is up to the chief constable to ensure that it is spent in a way that gives the best value for money."

Mr Cunningham admitted detection figures for burglary and vehicle crime in the county could be better, saying: "There is an issue with those which we are committed to resolve but there are very few undetected serious crimes in Staffordshire."

He ruled out Staffordshire, West Midlands, West Mercia and Warwickshire forces amalgamating but predicted much closer collaboration between them.

He forecast the sharing of human resources, IT and financial management as well as closer links between specialist branches of the forces such as firearms units, road policing and communications.

The chief constable, who took over the role 10 months ago, insisted: "I do not think there will be a forced merger."

But he also predicted cuts in the number of posts for senior officers in Staffordshire.