Enquiry desks close as police cuts bite

PUBLIC counters are set to close or have reduced opening hours at police stations across Oldham as part of money- saving plans.

Greater Manchester Police has announced proposals to save around £33 million, including the loss of 616 staff and 270 police officer posts.

The force is set to change the way people contact their local police by shutting many public-enquiry counters by January, 2012 with victims of crime making appointments instead or using a new non-emergency telephone number, 101, from November.

Failsworth, Royton and Uppermill police stations will no longer use their counters, while the opening times at Oldham will be reduced from 24 hours to between 8am and 11pm and at Chadderton it will be open for an eight-hour period each day from Monday to Saturday.

A survey found that 153 people a day use the Oldham counter, 28 at Chadderton, 12 each in Failsworth and Royton and eight at Uppermill.

Across the force the number of counters will be reduced from 55, which use 177 dedicated staff and cost £4.8 million a year to run, to 21. Around 96 per cent of calls and visits take place between 7am and 11pm.

Chief Constable Peter Fahy said: “In the past two years we have expanded neighbourhood policing and the role of PCSOs and this has given us greater links to local people.

“We have invested in customer-service desks and appointments for non-emergency issues. We have increased information available on the internet and started conversations with social networks.

“Despite the best efforts of the staff, many of the enquiry counters are not welcoming places. They try to provide a very broad range of services and are not the best way to provide them. We need to make savings now and cannot continue to run uneconomic enquiry counters.”

Consultation has been launched to ask the public how they want to be able to contact police.

A specialised fraud team will be created to work on complicated fraud investigations and free-up neighbourhood officers and forensic teams will be centralised for more flexibility.

Call handling teams will also be reduced to cut management costs and the mounted unit prioritised on public order, events and targeting crime hotspots.

Mr Fahy added: “Crime in Greater Manchester is at its lowest level for 10 years, but the current financial situation has left us with some difficult decisions to make. We have been modernising the way in which the force works and over the coming months will be making changes to improve performance and ensure value for money.

“Greater Manchester Police has to save £134m over the next four years and as more than 80 per cent of our budget is currently spent on staff, we need to make some very tough and painful decisions.”