Hundreds more jobs to go at West Midlands Police

  • Central
West Midlands Police officers on the beat Credit: ITV Central

West Midlands Police has revealed plans to cut 85 frontline jobs and over 200 staff jobs in its 2013 budget.

The force needs to make savings of 126 million pounds because of the Government's Spending Review programme.

The money will be saved from the police budget over a period of four years.

The measures were outlined by the force's Deputy Chief Constable Dave Thompson at a meeting by the police authority on Thursday.

To make the savings the police force have used a process called Priority Based Budgeting (PBB) to review key departments including:

  • Crime

  • Finance

  • Local Policing

  • Organisation and Service Development

  • Legal

  • Information Technology

  • Information Management

  • Human Rescources

  • Policing Support.

As part of the proposals, 234 police staff and 85 officer posts will be cut. Of the police staff posts, 151 are currently vacant and will not be filled.

This means that 81 force staff members face redundancy. The 85 frontline police officers will be re-employed in roles the force described as "policing priorities".

Speaking about the changes the Deputy Chief Constable said:

He added any staff facing redundancy will be fully supported and they will be given a priority chance to reapply for other positions within the force.