Interesting story in the Guardian that shows that the practice of sacking civilian staff and backfilling their posts with police officers is now happening in England as well as Scotland.
According to a leaked memo from Warwickshire police, officers are being taken out of frontline roles and moved to cover the "back-office" functions of civilian staff who have been made redundant. The decision by Warwickshire police authority – one of the smaller forces in England and Wales with 1,800 officers and staff – to draft up to 150 frontline officers into civilian desk jobs is expected to be followed by other forces grappling with a 20% cut in their Whitehall funding.
In Scotland we are seeing this on an almost daily basis. It is common for memos to staff to say, "as we no longer have civilian post X, police officers Y will now do this task". The so called 1000 extra police officers is being exposed for what it is - a political con-trick.
Good to see an audience member at last night's STV leadership debate asking a question about this. Not surprisingly, Alex Salmond did not respond.
On a related cuts theme have a look at this Martin Rowson cartoon in the Guardian. Absolutely brilliant!
A few daft anarchists couldn't do a fraction of the damage the Con-Dem coalition are doing to the fabric of our society.
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