The announcement that West Midlands Police face job losses of 2,500 over the next 5 years should start alarm bells ringing say local Liberal Democrats.

Concern centres around the proposed review of neighbourhood policing and the threat of drastic reductions in the number of Police Community Support Officers along with a realignment of Community Policing. “We are told that this is so that limited resources can be concentrated where they are most needed” said Cllr Ian Shires, Lib Dem Group Leader on Walsall Council.

“The reality is that a much slimmed down front line force would be reduced to responding to criminal acts rather than work with other agencies making the connections to tackle the causes of crime” said Ian.

Freed up from the constraints of working with Liberal Democrats in coalition the Tories have shown their true colours by swinging the axe indiscriminately in their zeal to drastically reduce the size of the state by 2020.

The danger is that all the good partnership working that had gone on over the past 10 years or so is in danger of being destroyed as each agency (the Police, Local Authority, Housing Associations and Public Health) revert to silo thinking as they restructure to reflect the diminishing amount of money being handed down from Government Departments.

Most people think that councils get their funding from the Council Tax” said Ian. “Truth is that Council Tax only accounts for around 15% of what councils spend. The rest comes from Central Government usually with specifically allocated to a particular service.

Those who oppose the ruthless Tory drive to downsize the State under the guise of balancing the books by 2020 no matter what the consequences need to unite if we are to stop them unpicking all the good work that came out of the Coalition in addressing inequality.