OUR frontline police officers do largely an excellent job and deserve every pat on the back they get.

It is a tough job and when they get nominated for awards – as officers did in four categories for this year’s Jane’s Police Review event – they deserve their moment in the spotlight.

And while you can credit Thames Valley Police for having its heart in the right place, there has to be a question mark over the principle of paying close on £500 for the partners to attend the glitzy awards do at the Hilton in Park Lane, London.

Like all our public sector organisations, the force is making cuts. Currently it is likely to cull 535 jobs – 96 of whom will be police officers.

While £480 is a drop in that financial ocean, surely every penny spent by Thames Valley Police should be properly scrutinised against its core function – and that is to stop or solve crime.

Anything else is less of a priority and this raises the isssue of what other expenditure there is when hundreds of jobs are going? Take care of the pennies, they say, and the pounds will take care of themselves.

Is it too much to ask that if partners wanted to be there they could pay for themselves – particularly if the officers know colleagues whose jobs are being lost at the same time?

While it may sound hard-hearted, a private company’s awards night in London is surely less compelling than ploughing every resource into fighting crime.