UNISON West Midlands are warning that cuts to police jobs and budgets will leave the public of the West Midlands with a Police Service that they don't deserve."The Conservative Party promised not to cut frontline policing and yet all we have seen is attack after attack on hard working police staff and budgets that are already stretched as thin as they will go."

"The posts that are being cut are the jobs that make a real difference to policing in the UK, A real difference in how the public are kept safe, a real difference in catching and prosecuting criminals."

Jill Harrison, West Midlands Police Branch Secretary Said:

“From 999 call takers to Control Room Staff and detention officers to scene of crime officers, our police service is struggling with staff shortages, huge workloads and constant pressure from ministers to keep the crime stats down.

“Policing has been under attack with all parts of the service being hit. The government is allowing neighbourhood policing roles to be decimated, so much so that if these proposals go ahead by September 2016 the West Midlands may only have 349 Police Community Support Officers left, this is down from 550 currently. The slashing of this public facing community based role continues with a further reduction to 119 by 2020.

Clearly the only people that are going to be happy about this are the criminals themselves.

PCSO have been a real success in keeping the public safe and working to reduce crime. Every neighbourhood currently has a team of PCSO's and PC's but this will not be the case going forward. The WMP2020 project will see the public encouraged to do more for themselves in solving community problems. 

Forces are nervously waiting what lies in store for them in next month’s spending review before announcing how quick the communities of the West Midlands will lose their PCSO's 

PCSOs have been invaluable in intelligence gathering and their presence on the streets has given peace of mind to parents and the elderly alike. 

The police simply no longer have the resources to investigate all burglaries, assaults, muggings and acts of vandalism, so vital clues that could lead to the arrest of persistent criminals just aren’t being picked up.

What this government is essentially creating is a haven for criminals and a growing sense of fear and insecurity in our communities.

UNISON sympathise with The Chief Constable, The Police and Crime Commissioner of West Midlands Police who have been left in an untenable position with trying to deliver a service to the public under unjust financial constraints. 

This government isn't listening to the professional that run the police service , The Home Secretary recently claimed There is “no ducking the fact” that spending on the police has to face further cuts but it “is perfectly possible” to do it without affecting the quality of neighbourhood policing. She accused the Police Federation of scaremongering and repeatedly “crying wolf” over the impact of the previous round of cuts in police funding as part of the government’s austerity programme – and rejected their claims that further cuts would force them to adopt “paramilitary styles of policing” in Britain.”

UNISON will be campaign against these further proposed cuts and have already met with local MP Jack Dromey Shadow Police Minister to highlight their concerns