{"id":755471,"date":"2026-08-31T10:06:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T10:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/755471\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T10:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T10:06:17","slug":"departing-essex-police-chief-constable-warns-pm-against-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/755471\/","title":{"rendered":"Departing Essex Police chief constable warns PM against cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In January, the government announced a review into the prospect of &#8220;dramatically&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/white-paper-sets-out-reforms-to-policing\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reducing the number of police forces in England and Wales, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That same week, the Labour administration said it would provide \u00a321bn for police in England and Wales in 2026-27, up \u00a31.3bn on the previous year, which it said meant a real-terms increase of 4.4%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But the Conservative police, fire and crime commissioner for Essex, Roger Hirst, said this meant the county&#8217;s share would be &#8220;insufficient&#8221; and would therefore <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/ckgng7nyvz9o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">consider cutting 110 full-time roles<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Between 2012 and March 2025, the number of special constables in England and Wales fell from 20,343 to 5,534.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Essex Police has 3,700 police officers and another 2,500 police staff to cover a county of 1.9 million people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A Home Office spokesman said: &#8220;We thank Ben-Julian Harrington for his service as Essex Police chief constable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We are working closely with policing partners to deliver major reforms, which will bring the police closer to the communities they serve and ensure we have the right policing in the right places.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Also in an interview with the BBC, Harrington <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/czjl41npld8o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">defended his officers against &#8220;armchair critics&#8221;<\/a> and discussed his plans beyond retirement, including a cycle ride across France.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Do you have a story suggestion for Essex? Contact us below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In January, the government announced a review into the prospect of &#8220;dramatically&#8221; reducing the number of police forces&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":755472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-755471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}