Derbyshire police consider new staff savings

Redundancies and a further reduction in officer numbers are being proposed by Derbyshire Police.

A new report looks at how to cut more than £13m from its budget over the next two years.

It proposes extending a recruitment freeze, meaning an estimated 123 fewer officers and 23 PCSOs, and making 112 other staff redundant.

Unison said it was "shocked" at the scale of the cuts. A final decision will be made in February.

The force has already put some savings in place, including taking on no new officers since July 2010.

In the report the Chief Constable, Mick Creedon, said: "Change of this magnitude will undoubtedly have an impact on everyone who lives in the county".

Mr Creedon has declined to comment further but Ravi Submaranian from Unison said: "We are surprised and shocked and it is incredibly worrying".

He added it was too early to identify which posts were at risk but rejected the suggestion from central government the forces should cut overheads and not front line staff.

"The public sector, those people who work in it, will tell you it is incredibly efficient and overheads have been cut year on year over the past 10 years," Mr Submaranian said.

"It is just a smokescreen for the fact we are going to see somewhere around 100 police officer posts being cut back, about 20 PCSOs and more than 100 other police staff go.

"Who is going to suffer from that? It is the people of Derbyshire."