Nottinghamshire Police staff to vote over strike

Civilian staff at Nottinghamshire Police are to be balloted for industrial action over what a union has called "needless" job cuts.

In a statement, Unison said the force was "spending public money unwisely, making staff redundant where work exists".

It added the union had already agreed to plans to cut redundancy benefits to save money and preserve jobs.

Nottinghamshire Police must save £46m by 2015, due to spending cuts.

A spokesman from the force said it was consulting extensively with staff and staff associations throughout the process.

"At the end of last year we began a radical re-engineering of the force in order to enhance efficiency and effectiveness and to respond to reductions in government funding," he said.

"Workforce reduction is regrettable but a necessary measure in light of the significant financial challenges the force faces. "

The Unison statement added: "Unison is recommending to ballot its members for industrial action because we cannot condone such a reckless waste of public money.

"We cannot accept that staff members need to be made needlessly redundant where work exists."

In order to meet Nottinghamshire Police's savings' target about 220 officers and 400 support staff will leave by 2012.