Cash concerns blamed for reduction in police dogs

ESSEX Police will be retaining a “punchy” dog unit but economic reality means it needs to reduce in size, the area’s police and crime commissioner has said.

Nick Alston said plans in the force to scale back the unit from 52 dogs to 40 and have 25 handlers working from one central hub rather than four were “all about the money” as the force “have to find savings.”

Mr Alston said: “We have to get Essex Police the right size, with the right resources in the right place to do the right job at the right time and the specialist units have all been looked at.”

According to Essex Police constable Stephen Kavanagh, the force needs to save in the region of £36 million over the next three financial years. It also announced last week that it would be scrapping its marine unit.

“The horses went more than a year ago now,” said Mr Alston. “I think the dogs were looked at then and they weren’t cut. With the dog unit, we have got really good dogs handlers, I have seen them at work.  We’ve got a good spread of dogs, we’ve got drugs dogs, we’ve got money dogs, we’ve got behaviour dogs and general purpose dogs. But we have to be as efficient as we can and the judgement of the Evolve team [looking at savings in the force] is that we can lose twelve dogs, by fifty two to forty.”

He added: “Forty is still a punchy dog unit. They’re going to be rationalised, move their location and base and I actually worry a little bit more about that than I do about the numbers but I think giving them one base probably makes them slightly easier to deploy.

“But those are operational decisions for the Chief. This is the line between the Chief and my responsibility. He consulted me about the dogs and boats before taking the decision, but I think it has to be his decision but one I would want some influence over and I think that’s worked out quite well in this case.

“He’s convincing me that bringing it down to forty… is more than lots of other forces.  So I don’t feel that is too bad an outcome, although with individual dogs and their handlers and you will always regret that.”

Mr Kavanagh said the changes to the two policing specialisms would achieve savings of more than £750,000 a year.

He added: “We need to be realistic about the services we can continue to deliver in the current economic climate – and focusing on our priorities for local communities and minimising threat, harm and risk means that we have had to re-evaluate some of our more specialist areas of operations.”

Mark Smith, Chairman of Essex Police Federation, said that while any cuts to policing were unwelcome, the force was making the best use of its resources.