How's this as a starter for 10?

Peter Singleton Chairman of Merseyside Police Federation says he is;

"Pleased that our Chief Constable Sir Jon Murphy has made public his concerns about the consequences of continuing cuts to the Policing budget here on Merseyside.

My article in last months' Police magazine highlighted that Merseyside has already lost 805 Police Officers, 454 members of Police staff and 114 PCSOs. The consequences Sir Jon highlighted yesterday confirm the fear that we will lose more and by 2019 we will have lost 1158 Police Officers, 1350 Police Staff and 366 PCSOs. The Home Secretary says we are crying wolf - but how can our members be expected to continue to provide the level of service the public expect and deserve when the government is taking 25% of our Officers, 59% of our support staff, and 78% of our PCSOs?

The Public are not stupid, they know that losses on this scale mean a reduction in what they can expect the Police to do. The government keeps repeating the mantra that crime is falling, although they ignore the actual recorded crime statistics from official sources (which show crime has risen by 3%) and instead rely on the crime survey that got data from only 6.25% of households in England and Wales. Of course these figures are only measuring 'traditional' crime like burglary and vehicle crime and don't include internet crime and fraud or huge areas of police-work like protecting vulnerable people, Child Sexual Exploitation, monitoring sex offenders in the community, looking for high risk missing from homes, etc, etc.

Sir Jon has highlighted and confirmed what I and my colleagues have been saying for months now - that there are consequences to these cuts to the Policing budget - I hope more Chief Constables do the same, and are honest with the public and what we can provide for them"

Peter Singleton
Chairman
Merseyside Police Federation