Warning of police jobs axe
Saturday 27th March 2010, 11:30AM GMT.
Up to 1,000 police jobs could go over the next four years as the West Midlands force tries to save £50 million, the region’s most senior officer warned today.
Chris Sims said he would “remodel” the size of the force, which has around 14,000 staff including nearly 9,000 officers, to cope with the “new financial realities” and is not ruling out redundancies.
But Mr Sims repeated his pledge to fight to keep front-line bobbies on the beat and said people in the region could expect to see the service they get improve, despite the cutbacks.
Launching a major shake-up of the way the region is policed, Mr Sims said a major programme to identify areas that could be cut back was under way and would last several years.
“We will remodel the size of the force so you can expect the number of police staff, but also of some police officer posts, to fall over that period while we simultaneously retain the service end of the business.
“At the moment we’ve got around 14,000 staff.”
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9000 bobbies on the beat?
So what do the other 5000 do???? Seems to be a large admin force for so few officers. Taxpayers money been wasted again???
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This is typical for people working in the public sector. The usual progression is as follows:
1 See Government adverts in the papers and TV asking people to join the police/council/NHS etc
2 Apply for posts and be successful. Increase your monthly expenditure on the assumption you have a steady job
3 Work you way up the scale until you reach the top through courses/conferences and other compulsory Government time-wasting nonsense.
4 Be made redundant so some other suckers can then be taken on at the lower pay rates.
With respect to the police, doubtless the senior, experienced officers will be made redundant and the cheaper ones retained including the ineffective Community Officers who are glorified security lookouts.
Seen it all before
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Police Officers can’t be made redundant so don’t fear .. 1000′s of them can still sit in offices on 35k plus a year shuffling paperwork.. they are more likely to sack the cleaners and the low paid admin staff..
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I would have expected the non-officers to be higher than 5,000. The amount of paperwork needed these days, that doesn’t need police officers to do, simply to satisfy the government and the public…..
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I am one of the low paid clerical staff and can see from the inside just how savings are trying to be made.
It would appear that the organisation is spending about 60 million in an attempt to save 50…or at least that’s how it appears. Regions are being merged and mine has seen every single department move from one office to another rather than keep disruption to a minimum. All this must cost money (including the cost incurred hiring a crane to uplift a portacabin and move it and all it’s files from one location to another).
Every single (without exception) person I have asked (and that is a good many) have no faith in this ‘Program Paragon’. All staff are demoralised and I have never seen such dejection in a workforce from Chief Superintendents to the office cleaners. The only people currently supporting it are the few managers/chiefs who actually know that they ‘have a job’ and this only being because they have been employed in a new role to promote the thing.
Chris Simms came from Staffordshire where he was in the process of the same type of restructuring. It didn’t work and once he’d left they started the process of changing it all back again. Now we at the West Midlands Police are expected to put up with this as he plays around with us instead.
I don’t actually blame Chris Simms. I blame the sycophantic cronies, namely his six (yes…I repeat six) Assistant Chief Constables and the three senior civilian managers all of whom stood behind the predecessor to Chris Simms just over twelve months ago and backed him in how well we were doing and that nothing needed changing.
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The Police have had to take a reality check due to a drop in their finances. The Government are reducing the money it gives to the Police Forces so they will have to cut their cloth accordingly. The only time we see a Police Officer is when we watch the Bill and even they are getting sacked. To leave our streets in the hands of PCSO’s is a recipe for disaster.
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The only time we see a fire engine is when theres a fire or even an ambulance when theres a medical emergency. So why should the police be any different then? If they patrolled the streets in their hundreds they would still never be in the right place at the right time to sort out the crime!!
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Don’t knock the PCSO’s they are the only ones walking the streets of the West Mids.. whilst your officers race round in cars or do office jobs on double the amount the clerical staff get paid..
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Probably an awful lot of pen pushers could be moved on along with the upper management promoted not because they are qualified to do the job but for political reasons. Overpaid for doing nothing – and who pays those Quangos connected to the Police – get rid of them too – millions could be saved put more police out fighting crime. Sick to death of hearing about they are ‘too busy’ to assist, or it isn’t worthwhile them coming out to assist.
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