THAMES Valley Police training will be done outside the force and 187 police officer posts and 16 police staff posts are to be cut under cost-saving plans presented to the Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner today.
The force needs to save £45m over the next three years. It has already identified £24m worth of savings and now needs to work out how to save another £21m.
Out-sourcing training will save £2.8m, the equivalent of 94 posts.
Another 53 officer roles, including 45 in management, will be converted to support staff posts.
The cuts were presented to Thames Valley Police and Crime Comissioner Anthony Stansfield this morning.
Posts will be cut as of April 1.
Officers will not be made redundant, but will be relocated within the force. Officials insisted the cuts will have no affect on front-line services.
Mr Stansfield also approved spending of up to £3.8m on new technology for the force. He said it would help make the force more efficient and offset some of the staff cuts.
Chief Constable Sara Thornton said: “There is no doubt that the financial position of the force over the next three years remains challenging.
“However, we remain committed to identifying innovative ways to reduce costs without impacting on our front-line services.
“We recognise this will become more difficult as we move forwards and having a robust medium term financial plan, which is flexible, is essential in our relentless drive to reduce the cost of policing whilst maintaining service and performance levels.
“Police officer numbers are inevitably the subject of debate, but it is really important to understand what any reduction actually means.
“It is worth noting that the presentation of our MTFP to the PCC this week is not the end of our budgeting but is only one step in an ongoing process. Over the next three months we will continue to work out the fine details and react to any additional information which becomes available, so there may be some small changes.”
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