The chief constable of Northern Constabulary warned yesterday that there could be a deterioration in detection rates because officers will have to carry out more administrative work as part of measures to cope with budget cuts.
Chief Constable Ian Latimer said that he could not rule out making redundancies among civilian support staff as the force looks to reduce next year’s budget by 9% – or £5million.
He said the “unpalatable” consequence would be that officers would need to carry out more bureaucratic work.
The admission came as Northern Constabulary published its annual public performance report, which revealed decreasing rates of recorded crime and rising detection rates.
But Mr Latimer said this may not continue as the force looks at several measures to reduce costs next year.
Recruitment of new officers has been stopped until at least April 2012, and the force is also considering measures for compulsory retirement for officers with 30 years’ service.
Mr Latimer said that he estimated that the number of officers would decline by about 50 by April 2012.
Instead, special constables will play an increasing role in providing community policing, with hopes that some volunteers may make the step to fully-fledged police officer in the future.
The number of civilian staff has already been cut by about 100 in the past three years, and Mr Latimer said that this made making cuts even more challenging.
He said: “We are already approaching minimum levels in terms of support staff. There may be unpalatable choices to be made in the future. If we do have to consider reducing support staff numbers further to maintain police officer numbers at an affordable level, it may well be that, to get through this critical year, that some police officers will have to undertake elements of administrative and bureaucratic work that they would not wish to do.”
He said: “About 85% of our budget is on people. Therefore, however efficient we are, many of the cuts have to come from people costs. I see the overriding priority in the short term as maintaining police numbers at the highest affordable levels.”
He said that he hoped that the force would be able to rebuild numbers.
This year’s public performance report – the ninth overseen by Mr Latimer – shows that violent crime was down by 10% last year, while sexual crimes were down by a quarter. Crimes of dishonesty fell by 9.5% and vandalism was down by 11.9%.
The force estimates that this means there were nearly 2,000 fewer crime victims last year. Detection rates were said to be around 62%.
Joint police board convener Norman MacLeod said: “There are going to be changes in the way public services are provided . We will still strive to have high detection rates.”