Gloucestershire Police release cost-saving plans

Gloucestershire Police have released cost-saving plans which would see more officers working in the community while cutting its overall number of posts.

The force needs to save £8.5m and has been working on the plans since autumn 2009.

It wants almost 90% of police officers deployed on front line duties across six local policing areas.

The plans are currently being consulted on and if approved they could be in place by the autumn.

'Value for money'

Chief Constable Tony Melville said: "The current operational structure has a relatively small percentage of officers and staff engaged in neighbourhood policing and the greatest percentage in our response capability. The new structure changes this.

"We are now able to make these changes as we have made significant adaptations to the way we manage the demands made of us.

"Better methods of incident management mean we can boost our community based policing teams, who can spend time out of their vehicles working with communities and partners confronting offenders and problems."

The restructure has been supported by Gloucestershire's police authority.

Councillor Rob Graham, the authority's chairman, said: "This is the next stage after a year's hard work of examining what we do, the service we provide to the public and the cost to the taxpayer in Gloucestershire.

"The police authority always has in mind the need to obtain the best value for money for every pound spent in the policing budget."