More than 120 North Yorkshire Police jobs are being left vacant to balance the books, under plans revealed by the crime commissioner.
Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Zoe Metcalfe will ask a panel of councillors and experts to increase the force’s council tax demand – known as the policing precept – by 4.99 per cent
That would amount to £14.03 extra for the average band D household.
Under the proposal, North Yorkshire taxpayers would be contributing 45 per cent of their police force’s £191m income, whereas Northumberland residents’ contribution only equates to 19.3 per cent of their force’s funding.
Of 2,343 responses from residents over the proposed police budget, some 55 per cent said they would be prepared to pay up to £5.60 more – an increase of up to 1.99 per cent.
Nevertheless, the commissioner’s report concludes there is “significant support from the public for an increase of at least £10”.
North Yorkshire has among the highest policing precept levels in England and Wales but will need to make £8.2m of savings in the coming year to balance the books.
The report says the Chief Constable wants to restructure the police “to deliver the best possible front line and visible policing services within the new future budget constraints”.
The proposed precept increase will also be used for long-awaited service improvements, such as £1.9m extra to improve 999 emergency call handling times, 101 call handling time, and expand means of the public contacting police.
More uniformed officers
Costs facing the force are expected to increase by £18m, mainly due to pay rises and inflation.
With a £1.5m injection it is proposed to boost frontline uniformed response teams, which will see the number of officers rise to 1,645.
Fifty police community support officers posts “have been unable to be filled despite recruitment efforts”.
They will remain unfilled this year to save £2 million. To cut costs by another £1.2 million it is proposed the force will allow non-officer staff vacancies rise from 50 to 74.
Meanwhile, the report states extra resources are needed to cope with increased demands on areas such as child protection, domestic violence and safeguarding the most vulnerable, as the need for more officers to investigate burglaries, robberies, and serious violence has become plain.
[tptn_list limit=3 daily=1 hour_range=1]