Bobbies to leave beats (From Warrington Guardian)

Bobbies to leave beats

FRONT line police officers are to be taken off the streets to answer telephones because Cheshire Police cannot afford to staff its Winsford call centre.

The police authority has announced more than 20 police officers will be transferred to the new Central Crime Recording Bureau (CCRB) in Winsford because of financial difficulties.

Cheshire Police has blamed Government capping constraints in its budget for the removal of officers from the streets.

Assistant Chief Constable David Griffin said: "Ideally we would not have transferred police officers into these posts but the current budgetary situation is that we have no choice if we are to make much needed service improvements."

Cheshire Police has reassured the public that the changes will not affect the level of service they receive.

Mr Griffin said: "I would stress that because of the improved efficiency and service the CCRB will provide, this actually releases more net police officer time on to the streets than if we were to leave them in place and continue with the old but relatively inefficient system for recording crime."

The front line officers' new role will be to take down details from people reporting crime.

The CCRB was set up to make reporting crime easier and mean officers would spend less time filling in paperwork.

According to Cheshire Police, this would result in officers being able to spend more time focusing on investigating crimes as well as providing a better presence on the streets.

But Mr Griffin believes this will still be the case.

He said: "It is important to recognise that despite bringing these 23 officers into the CCRB, it releases the equivalent of approximately 80 police officers worth of time, therefore constituting a net gain of approximately 57 additional police officers on the street."