Civilian staff asked to consider their futures

All backroom staff at North Yorkshire Police have been notified of the scheme by electronic letter from Chief Constable Grahame Maxwell.

Police officers cannot be made redundant and are unaffected by the plans.

Mr Maxwell said: "The announcement of the voluntary redundancy scheme will enable individual staff members to consider if the time is right for them to move on from North Yorkshire Police.

"This in advance of us having to invoke compulsory redundancies once the full impact of the comprehensive spending review has been assessed."

He said some people may believe the move is unnecessary when the details of the spending review are not known.

However, he added: "As Chief Constable I have previously indicated that I have no doubt that we, as an organisation, will need to be smaller if we are to balance our books over the coming years. On this basis I feel that it is in our staff's best interests to be offered a voluntary redundancy scheme at this time."

Councillor Jane Kenyon, chairman of North Yorkshire Police Authority said: "Sadly, with the scale of expenditure reduction we expect to see and with 86 per cent of North Yorkshire Police spending being people, it is inevitable that staff numbers will need to reduce, although we are committed to maintaining front-line policing as much as we can.

"It is our intention to achieve this with as little pain to individuals and the organisation as possible, and at the same time achieve value for money. We think our scheme will assist in achieving those objectives."

Earlier this month, it emerged that the force was considering scrapping plans to invest £200,000 in improving security at its rural headquarters.

The force was looking at installing a fence and lockable gate at its Newby Wiske base, near Northallerton.

The force is also considering spending £500,000 less on fleet cars this year and also has a recruitment freeze.