OFFICERS from the Ministry of Defence Police are working at \u201cfull capacity\u201d to protect MoD assets and further cuts will affect national security, the head of the force\u2019s federation has warned.<\/p>\n
Chairman of the Defence Police Federation,. Eamon Keating, said the existing 2,600 MDP officers could be cut by another 15% following November\u2019s Strategy Defence Security Review.<\/p>\n
Mr Keating told the Federation\u2019s annual conference: \u201cThere is no more fat to trim\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prospect of further reductions to the number of MDP officers is a matter the Federation views with concern. For the last five years we have operated at the very limits of our resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should not be immune from the requirements of savings and efficiency, but we have already done more with less.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is impossible to imagine how an even smaller workforce could meet the demands of the MoD if these remain the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are reliant on officers working beyond expectations, including them having to work substantial amounts of overtime to ensure the security of the MoD\u2019s estate and assets. And it has affected our ability to train and maintain training standards.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWe cannot do more with less.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Keating also warned against proposals to pass responsibility for guarding MoD assets to the Army.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThe MDP is the best-trained and best-able workforce to do the job we do. Ours is a unique workforce within the MoD, one unlike any other security provider.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the fact is this: the MoD estate and the critical national infrastructure \u2013 including the nuclear deterrent \u2013 is more secure because our officers are in place to guard and secure it because of the experience of our workforce, our training and firearms capability.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have enormous respect for our colleagues in the Armed Forces, but it is simply not the case that every member of the Armed Forces is trained to the level of these police officers.\u201d<\/p>\n
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OFFICERS from the Ministry of Defence Police are working at \u201cfull capacity\u201d to protect MoD assets and further cuts will affect national security, the head of the force\u2019s federation has\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2904,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2903"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2905,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2903\/revisions\/2905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}