100 jobs to go at West Midlands Police

More than 100 staff at cash-strapped West Midlands Police will be lost after the force was given the go-ahead to make major changes and scale down its non-emergency call-handling service, it emerged today.

Force chiefs have put in place plans for calls to be taken at just two locations, reduced from 10, in a move that will save about £3.9 million a year.

It will mean that call handlers will no longer be based at the Wolverhampton, Walsall, Halesowen and Smethwick stations. The changes are being made to improve standards combined with an ongoing need to make £126m of savings up to the end of 2015, force bosses have said.

It is hoped calls will be answered more quickly and that more calls will be answered within the set target of 30 seconds.

Assistant Chief Constable Sharon Rowe said today: "The move to two hubs will provide a more consistent, higher quality, swif-ter service to the public and further improve the overall efficiency of our call handling.

"It is important to note that these developments include no change to the delivery of local policing through local policing units; local officers and PCSOs will continue to respond to calls in their area and deliver neighbourhood policing to communities."

In total, the move to two hubs will mean the loss of 118 full-time equivalent posts. Redundancy costs could hit £1.8m.

However, it is expected that the changes - which will be implemented over the next 12 months – will deliver savings of £3.9m annually by 2014-15.

Other contact centres that will close are bases in Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield, Bournville, Stechford, Willenhall in Coventry and Solihull.