Costs, cuts and call-outs

COMPARED with their crime-solving, villain-chasing colleagues, the working lives of civilian police workers may seem staid and unglamorous. That does not make their work insignificant, however, so the threat to the jobs of hundreds of support staff, including up to 100 at Newby Wiske, near Northallerton, is a cause for much worry. There is no such thing as a cut with no impact.

Control room staff and colleagues in areas including the likes of finger-printing, scenes of crime and clerical work, perform essential activities for victims and witnesses. Reducing their number only creates work that has to be picked up elsewhere, with the immediate fear being that police officers could be left to shoulder some of the burden. This would be absurd because uniformed staff are already weighed down by paperwork, when they should be out looking for criminals.

Cutting the operation at Newby Wiske would appear to be a false economy, as the centre opened barely a decade ago. When there are countless ageing police buildings across North Yorkshire, it seems short-sighted to scale down one of the newest, where considerable sums of money have been spent on new IT and call management equipment, despite the region's four forces having to make once-in-a-generation cuts. There are other areas, however, such as top-level pay, or the procurement of equipment and vehicles, where money could be saved.

Closing the Newby Wiske control room would also raise a question-mark more generally over the future of the operation.

If ever there is a temptation for a wholesale move, it should be resisted. The force would not be serving its public well by shedding more staff and sending the rest to York, where it already has a large presence. North Yorkshire Police has the largest patch in England and it could become semi-detached from council taxpayers if it is concentrated in just a handful of areas.

The force faces a balancing act because of steep cuts made inevitable by the slack and selfish approach of bankers and politicians. It will achieve little, however, by the rapid opening and closing of high-tech control rooms. The vital work done there must be safeguarded.