Notts Police under fire over recruitment freeze

Police commissioner Paddy Tipping has come under fire for withdrawing constable roles within the force as a freeze on recruitment is put in place.

A group of internal workers on Nottinghamshire Police, who had been offered jobs as officers on, had the bombshell dropped after being summoned to a recent meeting.

The police recently announced that recruitment would be ‘put on hold’ for a year to help balance the budget.

But one unhappy worker, who contacted Chad but did not want to be named, hit out at the move.

He said: “The fact remains that most members of this group would in fact have to take a pay cut for the first couple of years as police constable as most had established roles with Nottinghamshire Police.

“So the excuse that further cuts were needed doesn’t appear to add up.

“Would the public prefer to have more cops who are able to arrest criminals for less money or continue to pay the rates they do for civilian staff?

“With that said would it not make sense to review the current roles of police and crime commissioners as their role already takes a large chunk of public money when this role could easily be fulfilled by the mayor of Nottingham or chief constable who actually understand the demands of his or her force?”

Mr Tipping has said the move was taken because the Government funding for the force had been slashed by £5.6m for the forthcoming financial year, which he says is equal to around £10m with inflation taken into account.

As well as a recruitment freeze, the police part of the council tax precept is set to rise by just under two per cent.

Mr Tipping said: “I understand that this is a big disappointment for those members of staff expecting to become warranted police officers.

“ The decision wasn’t taken lightly and is indicative of the very tough financial situation we are facing. We were informed that we need to save around £12m, on top of the £42m already achieved, which is a worse position than originally intimated.

“I’m continuing to cut the budget for my own office, which has seen us move to our offices in order to reduce our rent.”

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