Leicestershire: Police cash fight prompts warning

Leicestershire's Police Federation is warning job cuts could leave officers working on the streets struggling, according to the BBC.

Chief Constable Matt Baggott claimed 140 police jobs are at risk over the next two years because of underfunding.

The federation said fewer officers would spread the resources dangerously thin, with consequences for both the police and the public.

It comes ahead of Home Office funding decisions and after the force was rated one of the best in England and Wales.

Mr Baggott said he had told the Home Office there were 60 police posts vacant to help balance the books and he was underlining the challenges of policing a rapidly expanding city.

Dave Grenz, from the Police Federation, felt there were problems building up for the future.

"Morale is not good at the moment in the force," he said. "People are worried about what is going to happen.

"People should be under no illusion, if the funding situation is not sorted out then the performance of the police - no matter how good a job the chief constable and the others do - they will not be able to maintain the performance of the police."

Mr Grenz pointed out that recruitment had already been suspended for the rest of the financial year.

He said an 11% rise in police precept in the council tax would maintain numbers but any increase is capped at 5%.

NHS maternity care 'is in crisis'

Fears over the standard of NHS services for expectant mothers were heightened last night after it emerged that the number of maternity beds has fallen by up to 40% in some regions - reports the Daily Telegraph.

The information, obtained from a parliamentary answer, said that since Labour came to power in 1997, there had been an 18% reduction in the number of maternity beds for every 100,000 people - equivalent to almost 2,000 beds in the past 10 years.

But in some strategic health authority areas, the drop was much more dramatic with reductions of 40% in north-west London and South Yorkshire.

There were 35% fewer maternity beds in the Leicestershire, Northants and Rutland area as well in the South-West Peninsula authority area since 1997.

Even in the County Durham and Tees Valley, where until recently Tony Blair had his constituency, the decline was 32%.

A Tory spokesman insisted that Labour could not claim that home births made up for the decline as Government figures showed that only 2% of women gave birth at home in 2006/07.

The answer also highlighted the relative lack of midwives, confirming that their numbers are not keeping pace with the number of live births.

Since 2001, the number of live births had risen by 12.5% but the number of midwives rose by 4.5%.