Information obtained by Plaid Cymru on the amount of overtime worked by police officers has suggested Welsh constabularies will struggle to cope with proposed cutbacks.
A Freedom of Information application has revealed that overtime is a regular feature of the four Welsh police forces with South Wales Police regularly paying out more than £6 million every year to cover the extra hours worked.
North Wales also saw the number of overtime hours worked by sergeants and constables increase by nearly a third – from 119,073 to 156,299 – between 2007 and 2009.
Dyfed-Powys Police also pays out more than more £2.5 million in overtime every year with the exception of 2008 when it cost them £2,455,539.
Gwent Police actually reduced the level of overtime in recent years; in 2006 officers worked an extra 4,114,858 hours but in 2009 this fell to 3,083,423 overtime hours.
The “Con/Dem” coalition government is set to impose a funding cut of more than 15% over the next two years in real terms on the 43 police forces in Wales and England according to a recent House of Commons analysis of the Home Office grant.
The Association of Police Authorities described the financial prospects over the next four years as daunting.
South Wales Central AM Chris Franks said:
“The Tories like to position themselves as the party of law and order but their cutbacks will decimate the budgets of police forces throughout England and Wales.
“There is bound to be a level of overtime within every police force due to the need to cover sick leave or any other type of absences but the figures I obtained suggest many of the police forces in Wales are working flat out with very little slack.
“The huge savings that will be forced upon our constabularies will probably mean job losses or, at the very least, a recruitment freeze.
“That will inevitably mean less staff, doing more work, yet the overtime figures across the four Welsh police forces suggest they are already working to capacity.
“The Con/Dems need to think very carefully about the implications of what they are doing. Police forces need to have enough resources to be able to deal with major incidents and my worry is that forces will be ill-equipped to deal with large emergencies due to the major cutbacks that are coming their way.”
Mr Franks’ fellow Plaid Cymru South Wales Central Assembly member, Leanne Wood, who is a former probation officer, is also campaigning for the powers to deal with the courts, police, prisons, probation service and sentencing to be devolved to Wales.
Ms Wood believes this would allow the Welsh Assembly Government to apply its chosen policies based on the democratic mandate of the people of Wales.
