Warks police offers staff voluntary redundancy to cut costs

[dutchman]

The police in Warwickshire are now offering voluntary redundancy to staff to help make nearly £23 million pounds of savings by 2015.


Warwichsire police headquarters is also being closed to save costs

It iss thought around 450 posts – a quarter of the workforce - may need to go to help balance the books in that time.

794 civilian staff with at least two years experience have now been asked if they would be willing to leave the force voluntarily.

The move doesn’t affect officers.

Not every application will be accepted, but bosses have admitted the majority of savings over the next 4 years will have to come from a reduction in posts.

The move comes just weeks after Chief Constable Keith Bristow agreed to follow in the footsteps of the West Midlands force and bring in a rule where officers with at least 30 years service are forced into retirement.

Warwickshire police are also seeking to sell-off some of their buildings, including their leafy headquarters at Leek Wootton.

Commenting on today’s news Chief Constable Bristow said:

“We value our workforce of committed and talented people. Our police staff fulfil a wide range of crucial policing roles including public facing roles such as PCSOs, Scenes of Crime Officers and those in the Communications Centre, as well as specialist professional services in areas such as Human Resources and Finance.

“Losing staff is not something we want to do, but something we have to do in order to make the budget cuts required of us.

“We have to reduce our spending by a total of £22.9 million by the end of March 2015.

“The settlement packages which will be offered for those choosing voluntary redundancy will allow staff to leave the organisation by their own choice.”