POLICE chiefs in Devon have welcomed the hugely unexpected announcement by Chancellor George Osborne that police budgets would not be cut further.

With policing being an unprotected area of public spending, Mr Osborne had been expected to announce cuts to police budgets of at least ten per cent — potentially as much as 20% as he sought to make savings of £20-billion across all departments.

This raised fears that Devon and Cornwall Police faced a huge budget deficit, meaning that the force could be forced to lose up to 760 police officers, all 360 PCSO posts and a further 180 jobs within the organisation.

In a hugely unexpected move Mr Osborne decided against any further cuts to police funding. Devon and Cornwall Police will still have millions of pounds of savings to make, but fears have been eased following the spending review.

The Chancellor said: ‘Now is not the time for further police cuts, now is the time to back our police and give them the tools to do the job. I am today announcing that there will be no cuts in the police budget at all, there will be real terms protection for police funding. Mr Speaker, the police protect us and we are going to protect the police.‘

Devon and Cornwall’s Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Hogg has welcomed Mr Osborne’s announcement not to make any further budget cuts to policing.

He said: ‘Two weeks ago we were celebrating changing the Government position through our work in Devon and Cornwall on the funding formula. Today we see the product of a longer campaign to persuade Government not to proceed with disastrous cuts to police budgets.

‘The change in the government’s position makes it possible for us to plan on building a policing service for 2020.  This is a service that will better meet the new and increasing crime areas such as terrorism, cyber crime and child sexual exploitation.

‘We will continue to look at efficiency savings across all of our work because the more efficient we become the more resources we can devote to front line policing. It is too early to say what specific impact this will have in Devon and Cornwall. We will be looking at the detail over the coming days and weeks and building our plans.’

Sector police inspector for West Devon Mark Sloman said that the implications of Mr Osborne’s announcement were still unclear but that the picture was now more positive.

He said: ‘We don’t know what the future looks like. We still have to find savings but the landscape has changed considerably. I don’t know what the future holds for Devon and Cornwall Police, or for our PCSOs. The chief constable has said we won’t know for sure until the end of December or early January. However, this is more positive.’