EAST Lancashire’s top cop said it is ‘inevitable’ the public will see fewer police officers because of budget cuts.

Chief Superintendent Damian Darcy admitted cuts mean he can no longer send officers to every reported crime, but said resources would always be put into tackling offences with a high victim impact.

And he was committed to tackling the most serious crimes, including child sexual exploitation, counter terrorism, serious organised crime and domestic abuse.

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The news of the reduced service has been criticised by politicians and police leaders from past and present, with the former chairman of the police authority saying the cuts were to ‘the bone’.

Mr Darcy, who has 900 police officers and staff under his command in East Division, said 80 per cent of his budget was spent on staff.

Lancashire Police has cut £60million across all three divisions, east, west and south, since 2010 and must cut a further £43million by 2021 to meet estimated Government spending cuts.

That will leave the total budget at £200million and Mr Darcy said it was ‘inevitable’ that some of those savings would come from staff reductions.

“The only way you’re going to save that money is to have fewer people,” he said. “Our focus has to be on the serious and complex nature of child sexual exploitation, domestic abuse, counter terrorism, and serious organised crime, which we deal with at every level from neighbourhood policing teams to regional level.”

Mr Darcy added that in the future he expects more crimes to be reported over the internet and via text message and revealed that the police are working on a system where victims of crimes will be able to check the progress of investigations online.

Clive Grunshaw, Police and Crime Commissioner for Lancashire, said: “I have predicted that a total of £100million will have been cut from our budgets by 2020/21 by the Government and it is absolutely impossible to implement cuts of that magnitude and not see changes to our services. That is the reality we are facing.”

Malcolm Doherty, the former chairman of the Lancashire Police Authority, said: “It’s sad that it has come to this. They have chopped, chopped, chopped and this is what happens.

“I have no doubt that these latest cuts that are coming are to the bone. The police clearly don’t matter to this Government.”

Leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council Cllr Mohammed Khan said: “I am very disappointed. The Government needs to think what the impact will be on the most vulnerable people when they make cuts to frontline services.”

Pendle MP Andrew Stephenson said: “Any impact of cuts up until 2020 are at the moment hypothetical. I will certainly work with Mr Darcy and others to ensure going forward they are continually delivering the best possible service for the people of Pendle and others.”

Mr Darcy said he had people with the right level of experience to make the call on when and where to deploy officers “Every crime is investigated. In our contact centre we have a team of people who are the initial investigation unit. They are experienced police officers who know how to investigate crimes over the telephone or know if you need to go out to it,” he said.

“If it’s a case of vehicle theft for example they will check if there are any witnesses, if it was captured on CCTV or if there is any forensic evidence. Where it’s a case of high victim impact, we will always go to that.”