1,500 police jobs could go in South Yorkshire

A report has revealed that 500 officers, 1,000 support staff and 150 Police Community Support Officer positions could go at the force by 2020 as a further £59 million of cuts are demanded.

Neil Bowles, chairman of South Yorkshire Police Federation, said: “We don’t know what the budget is until November so no decisions have been taken yet, but we do know this is a serious prospect and our people are worried.

“We’re certainly worried about officer posts being reduced which will affect the service and sympathise with our colleagues in civilian unions facing job losses, which will have a big impact as their jobs would have to be done by cops which involves more stress.

“You can see that SYP’s budget in 2007 was just over £240 million and we had 3,321 police officers, 2,417 police staff members and 276 PCSOs.

In 2015, SYP has a budget of £240m and we have 2,532 police officers — 789 fewer — 1,733 police staff members, down 684, and 310 PCSOs — 34 more.

“If we take inflation into account, £240 million in 2007 would be worth over £310 million today.

“Therefore, we have suffered a cut of over £70 million. At the same time, the average population has grown by six per cent.

“We just can’t provide a service to the public like we used to.”

The new savings come on top of £53 million cuts since 2010 which have already seen 1,000 jobs lost.

Unison’s South Yorkshire Police branch, which represents civilian workers, says the already stretched-force would struggle to cope with further job losses.

A spokesman for South Yorkshire Police said: “The budgetary constraints have led to fewer staff, both officers and support staff, and that means we are having to change the way we work, to redefine our approach in light of the challenges we face.

“Officers and staff have been affected by a number of changes, for example cuts to the force budget and the voluntary redundancy process for staff, but as a force we are working hard to try to minimise the impact of these changes.

“Change will always make people uncomfortable but, as ever, we have officers and staff across the force working to their absolute maximum and they continue to provide a high level of service to the communities we serve.”

It has been revealed that South Yorkshire Police officers are having to answer 999 calls due to staff cuts.

Officers are covering the vacancies as a result of some call handlers taking voluntary redundancy.