Police Not Recruited Due to Government Failures

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 30th Jun 2003

Leeds Liberal Democrat's representative on West Yorkshire Police Authority, Cllr David Morton (Lib Dem, Headingley) today expressed dismay at the lack of support from central Government for efforts to reduce crime in West Yorkshire.

Cllr Morton said "for the third month running we have missed our targets for recruiting Police Officers in West Yorkshire. This is not because there is a shortage of money or people qualified to do the job but because of a shortage of training places nationally".

"The Home Office is only funding police training to cope with the level of recruitment that they themselves wanted to happen. Authority's like West Yorkshire have raised Council tax bills to provide what people are crying out for – more police. It seems perverse that even when someone else is picking up the tab for extra officers the government still won't supply the training places".

"If the current trend continues then we'll miss the West Yorkshire Target for net increases of officers by 20% by the end of the financial year. I'm not trying to be alarmist; all I'd like is action now to stop this becoming a problem. I'll be writing to all Leeds MPs asking them to lobby the Home Office hard on this issue"