POLICE GRANT ALLOCATION CUTS - UNISON RESPONSE
POLICE GRANT ALLOCATION CUTS - UNISON RESPONSE
Commenting on the government's 20% cut to Police Grant Allocation figures, Ben Priestley, UNISON’s National Officer for Policing, said:
“Police services will be decimated if the widespread cuts, set out in the grant allocation figures, go ahead.
“Cutting 20 per cent of police funding in the next four years will lead to major job losses and many services being withdrawn from communities up and down England and Wales.
“The fact that these are front-loaded in the first two years of the CSR is particularly damaging, because it means that police forces and authorities will be forced into making deep staffing cuts straight away, rather than allowing staff turnover and natural wastage to take some of the strain.
“It will not be possible to protect the frontline in the way the Government claims, because the distinction between this and the policing ‘back office’ no longer exists. It takes many different police staff roles to put a police officer on the beat and keep them there. If these posts are cut, the public will see fewer officers on the streets as they have to be withdrawn to cover important office-based functions.
“We have been campaigning for the ringfencing of the neighbourhood policing grant and welcome the Government’s guarantee to do this until 31 March 2013, as this will provide some protection for vital Police Community Support Officer posts.
“But we are concerned that the neighbourhood policing grant will be given over to the Government’s Police and Crime Commissioners from 1 April 2013 for them to do as they like with it, as we fear they may decide to use the money that was dedicated to neighbourhood policing for other purposes.”
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For more information please contact the UNISON Press Office on 0207 551 1255.
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