City and county force for Notts

Nottinghamshire Police plans to save money by creating a city and a county force.

If the police authority approves, the force will scrap its current four-division structure allowing it to save money on the running costs of individual divisional headquarters and their various departments.

In June, the Government announced plans to reduce public sector budgets by a quarter by 2014.

Police forces will not know for certain the severity of the cuts until results of a spending review on October 20.

Nottinghamshire currently has four divisions — A Division (Mansfield and Ashfield) B Division (Bassetlaw, Newark and Sherwood) C Division (Nottingham City) and D Division (South Nottinghamshire).

Under the new structure, the city and county divisional headquarters could be centred around the force control rooms at Sherwood Lodge, Arnold, and Mansfield.

The force said it was too early to say what the implications of the changes would be.

It did, however, pledge to protect front-line services where possible.

A spokesman said: “A paper was presented at a meeting of senior officers last week putting forward a move to a county and city Basic Command Unit (BCU) model.

“The police authority will be given full oversight of this proposal at a meeting later this month and, subject to their agreement, a strategic delivery plan for a restructure will be produced under the leadership

of Assistant Chief Constable Paul Scarrott and project lead, Chief Superintendent Helen Jebb.

“This will include full consultation with officers and staff.”

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