5,800 fewer frontline police after cuts

Figures released yesterday show that a fifth of front counters in police stations will also close.

A report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) also revealed that there will be 5,800 fewer frontline officers, but the proportion of officers on the frontline will increase to between 81 per cent and 95 per cent as the number of non-frontline officers is almost halved, with 7,600 going by 2015, the report said.

Some 137 “access counters”, such as those in libraries and supermarkets, will also open to offset the closure of 264 front desks.

The figures do not include those for the UK’s biggest force, the Metropolitan Police, or for Cheshire, as they have yet to produce plans.

In the last year, the overall police workforce has been reduced by 17,600 officers and staff, more than half of the total reductions planned by March 2015, the inspectorate added.

The Met was named as one of three forces which may not be able to provide an efficient or effective service in the future.

“In our professional judgment (and having considered local context, including police cost to the taxpayer), there is a risk that three forces may not be able to provide a sufficiently efficient or effective service for the public in the future,” the report aid.

These were Lincolnshire and Devon & Cornwall, as well as the Met, the HMIC said.

Sir Denis O’Connor, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, said the Met needed to have a plan to tackle its £233m funding gap by the autumn.

The criticism comes after Bernard Hogan-Howe was brought in to lead the force after the phone-hacking scandal led to the resignations of Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson and assistant Commissioner John Yates.

It also comes after Stephen Greenhalgh, who was appointed as the London Mayor’s deputy mayor for policing a month ago, repeatedly told the London Assembly he was “not an expert on operational policing matters”.