POLICE officers are being pulled off the streets to replace civilian workers made redundant due to budget cuts, union chiefs have warned.

According to Unison, 189 North-East and North Yorkshire police staff members were made redundant in the three years between April 2008 and March this year.

The figures, obtained using freedom of information powers, showed that Durham Police suffered the biggest losses, with 101 redundancies over the three years.

At nearly ten per cent of the 1,059 civilian workers employed in April 2008, the reduction is among the biggest in the country.

North Yorkshire Police made 71 redundancies out of 1,331 workers over the three years, while Cleveland made seven civilian staff redundant from a staff of 948 and Northumbria ten from a payroll of 2,399.

Arthur Dickinson, the Durham Police branch secretary of Unison, said that about half of the redundancies at his force had been voluntary, however it was still a “sad state of affairs”.

He added: “With 20 per cent cuts it was police staff that bore the brunt. It meant police officers being pulled off the streets to fill their roles.”

Gary Ridley, Durham Police assistant chief officer, said work was now ongoing to prepare the 2013 budget.

“It is not anticipated that there will be any compulsory redundancies during that year,” he added.

Cleveland’s temporary chief constable Jacqui Cheer said the force was committed to protecting frontline services and people’s jobs.

She added: “As part of our partnership with Steria, police staff transferring across have seen a ten-year guarantee on their terms and conditions, as well as no compulsory redundancies.

We have therefore been able to minimise the number of redundancies throughout the force.”

Nationally, Unison claims that 3,072 civilian police jobs have already been lost, with 18,000 due to be cut by 2015.

Women workers are the most affected with 64 per cent of reported redundancies.

The union is currently balloting 1.1 million members, including police members, over proposed changes to public sector pension.

Heather Wakefield, the union’s head of local government, said: “The public are not fooled by the Government’s false claims about protecting front-line policing.

“If police staff and PCSOs are cut, then police officers will be forced off the beat and back into the office.”