West Midlands Police force’s budget has been cut by £6.9 million this year as part of the wholesale Whitehall steps to reduce the UK’s deficit.

It had been promised a £277.4 million grant in February for 2010/11.

But this has been reduced to £270.5 million as part of a £125 million national cut to police forces across England and Wales.

The Home Office needs to find savings of £367 million, which are part of a £6.2 billion package of spending cuts announced by Chancellor George Osborne earlier this week. Police will bear the brunt of the Home Office cuts proposed by the coalition Government.

Elsewhere, Staffordshire’s budget has been cut from £73.2 million to £71.5 million and West Mercia’s from £74.7 million to £73 million.

West Mercia said it would work to “minimise” any impact on communities.

Announcing the 1.5 per cent reduction in total Government police funding, Policing and Criminal Justice Minister Nick Herbert said forces had to make their “fair share of savings”, adding he that was “confident” this could be done without affecting frontline services.

He said even after the reduction, the payout still amounted to an increase by £124 million this year to a total of around £9.61 billion.

The allocations have been calculated so that each force will face a cut equivalent to the same percentage of their core government funding.