Budget cuts mean fewer bobbies on the beat

BUDGET cuts mean that Essex Police will not be able to put more bobbies on the beat in the foreseeable future.

That’s the view of Essex Police Federation Secretary Phil Suarez, who was responding to statistics in the latest Crime Survey for England and Wales that show only one in five people said they see enough bobbies on the beat.

The survey found that 22% of people said they feel officers are highly visible – a figure that has nearly halved since 39% who answered the same question in 2011.

And the percentage of the public who said they “never” see police foot patrols has risen by more than half in the same period – from 25% to 39%.

Phil said: “Clearly we are doing a lot more with a lot less, and certainly I think when you look at the rural parts of the county, probably the chances of spotting your local friendly bobby are quite light.

“I think it is a case of having to prioritise what’s important, whether it’s public protection, domestic violence. Actually you have to work out is with officers walking around, there’s a huge reassurance value there, but is that value for money when there’s all these other pressing needs?

“I would love to be in the position where we do have more officers walking around, but I think as budgets stand at the moment, that’s probably not going to be possible for the foreseeable future.”

Essex Police was at the forefront of the #CutsHaveConsequences campaign to highlight the impact of budget cuts on the police service.

And Phil believes that in the current climate, the public will have to get used to the fact that there are things the police service just cannot do.

He said: “We’re approaching probably 1,000 officers less. Workloads certainly haven’t shrunk have they? So those things that we used to do, be it Remembrance Day parades, school fetes that we’d go to, perhaps policing in schools, we may not be able to do.

“I think a lot of it around the community engagement aspect, they’re the matters that we probably can’t deal with as much as we used to because of other pressing things that we have to do.

“From the force’s perspective and ours, public safety is very high on the agenda. That probably means that a lot of our resources are going to particular strands of policing, as in public protection, counter-terrorism clearly at the moment is very high on the agenda, and that doesn’t leave a lot of time or space probably for some of those other more fluffy things, if you like, that we perhaps traditionally have always done.”