Officers will feel impact of job losses warns police federation chief
A REDUNDANCY offer made to more than 1,400 staff at Humberside Police could have a knock on affect for warranted officers, the Police Federation has warned.
Steve Garmston, chair of Humberside Federation, raised the fears after Chief Constable Tim Hollis revealed redundancy packages were being offered to 1,451 staff.
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Steve Garmston, chair of Humberside Federation, has warned a redundancy offer made to more than 1,400 staff at Humberside Police could have a knock on affect for warranted officers.
Mr Garmston – whose group represents rank and file officers – said he feared the move could lead to the loss of "skills and experience".
He said: "The fear is that the redundancy scheme will be indiscriminate in the skills and experience lost.
"I hope that is not the case.
"The work carried out by civilians is linked to that which my members do and of course there is a fear that any roles lost in the civilian side will then have to be carried out by a police officer – something which has of course a knock on effect to policing.
"That is a real risk which the force is going to have to manage."
Mr Garmston's comments come after the Telegraph revealed 1,451 "operational staff" had been sent letters offering redundancy packages – only months after a similar offer was made to 718 back office staff.
The move means Humberside Police's entire 2,169 civilian workforce has been given the offer of voluntary redundancy.
A funding pot of £3.9m has been reserved to pay off police community support officers, scenes of crimes officers, civilian investigators and call centre staff.
As staff are expected to be lost from across northern Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire, Mr Garmston said the force is considering just what roles the police currently carry out – and importantly, would have to be stopped.
He said: "The big question for the police is what we are not going to do.
"We cannot lose as much money as we are going to and not stop doing some of the things we do.
"What that is we just don't know at the moment.
"The force needs to decide what we do and what we do not do."
Last month, Tim Hollis, chief constable of Humberside Police, exclusively told the Telegraph that if the coalition Government reduced police funding by 25 per cent, crime could rise as a result of cuts in staff members.
3 Comments
by Pippy, Barton
Monday, September 06 2010, 8:09PM
“You silly, silly people. You do realise that if PCSOs are removed from the streets there will be NO police on the streets at all. The "proper" PCs will be in their offices filling out paperwork while criminals will run the streets.
The Police Community Support Officers do a great job and we would be lost without them.”
by Contax, BRIGG
Monday, September 06 2010, 4:15AM
“Get rid of all PCSO's as they are useless, they even think they control civil law if their mates are affected, they are cocky, arrogant bitches that can't do anything other than collect gossip from their little mafia groups who peep behind curtains to spy on others then pass on a load of lies.”
by skint, scunny
Saturday, September 04 2010, 7:39PM
“"....that any roles lost in the civilian side will then have to be carried out by a police officer..."
Well if that means that we`ll see proper policemen walking the streets instead of those glorified traffic wardens, PCSOs, then good.”