Police staffing loss to tackle budget decrease

Chief officer Robin Smith told a scrutiny panel that he was also preparing to cut two positions in the service

Jersey's police force is operating with 14 fewer officers than the number recommended five years ago - and is facing restrictions on its budget.

Chief officer Robin Smith told a scrutiny panel he was also preparing to cut two positions in the service - although they were "not police officers".

The force was asked to identify savings in its budget, which is set to slowly decrease over the next four years.

In the 2025 government budget, the force is set to receive £30.1m next year, £29.9m in 2026, £29.9m in 2027 and £27.4m in 2028.

Mr Smith said cuts would also be made to the budget of the department that analyses electronic data.

He said: "We have identified our savings for 2025 and that is two members of police staff, not police officers, and for 2026 as well, as well as a small reduction in our digital forensics unit where we did have some growth but some of that growth was reduced, in fact it was reduced by 20%."

Mr Smith said the force was "probably as busy as it's ever been" with the investigations of 15 deaths - the Pier Road explosion, the three fishermen who died in a sunken trawler and a road incident that killed a father and son.

He said the force could cope financially for now with the additional funds for those investigations, but when the money stopped it would be harder to balance the budget.

'Budgets aren't increasing'

Minister for Justice and Home Affairs, Deputy Mary Le Hegarat said police savings had been "significantly less" than other government departments but it was because the forces' budgets were not "increasing over the next few years".

She said: "There was money put into the budget, the extra needed to fund all of the extra pay increases that were there, that looked initially like there was extra money but there wasn't."