Frontline cops fighting crime are to be drafted into back office admin roles under cuts plans, The Telegraph has learned.
A Warwickshire Police memo to staff, leaked to us, states frontline officers will be forced into the jobs of civilian staff taking redundancy under massive cuts.
Frontline police protecting the public in Coventry could also be drafted into back office tasks, a West Midlands police authority chief told us.
The government insists forces can protect frontline policing, despite unprecedented 20 per cent funding cuts to forces to help reduce the national deficit.
Prime Minister David Cameron and home secretary Theresa May have repeatedly insisted police forces are able to balance their books through cutting wasteful and inefficient back office functions.
But the leaked memo reveals for the first time plans to do the opposite - with warranted police officers drafted from streets into admin roles.
Chief constable Chris Sims in the West Midlands and Keith Bristow in Warwickshire have repeatedly said their priority is to protect frontline policing.
But senior sources say the plan is necessary to shed 450 jobs in Warwickshire - a quarter of the workforce - because laws prevent police officers from being sacked.
To help cut the £100m by £23m, police chiefs are having to disproportionately cut back office jobs, and then draft officers into admin roles still considered essential.
Police chiefs are also shedding police officer jobs by enforcing A19 pension regulations which force officers to retire after 30 years service.
But they expect not enough police officers’ posts will go through A19.
The leaked memo by Richard Elkin, the force’s resources director, was sent to all Warwickshire’s 900 back office civilian support staff on Wednesday, and invites them to apply for voluntary redundancy.
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Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2011 3:40 pm