RECRUITMENT of police officers will be frozen if Government budget cuts are as big as feared, Thames Valley Police’s chief constable said today.

Sara Thornton said expected news that police budgets will be slashed by 25 per cent would need a freeze on frontline staff.

Recruitment of backroom staff was being frozen now, she said, in anticipation of the cuts, to be finalised after an autumn spending review by Chancellor George Osborne.

But a 25 per cent cut would slash £61.2m from the total budget, she warned.

This has led to concerns about the impact on frontline policing.

Chf Const Thornton said: “If we are all right on these figures we will stop recruiting but we haven’t done that yet.”

The target for 4,292 officers will be met and maintained this month, bosses were told – including an extra ten officers for the firearms unit.

Yet this could later be frozen and officers will be hit immediately by a cut in extra payments, called the special priority payments.

This will be reduced from three per cent of the salary budget to two per cent, the minimum demanded allowed.

And Chf Const Thornton said the system was ‘highly likely to go’.

The payments have been seen as important in Thames Valley, which covers Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, to stop officers leaving for London’s Metropolitan Police.

The force authority also today agreed to meet a Government demand to make £3.4m in immediate savings.

This will include keeping Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) numbers at 498 instead of 530 as planned, saving £210,000.

The officers do not have the full range of powers as regular PCs and are employed as the ‘eyes and ears’ of officers.

Full-time backroom staff will be kept at 2,670 instead of 2,912, saving £630,000. Chf Const Thornton said some could be recruited if it was ‘madness’ not to.

Other savings will be found from overtime, mileage claims, vehicle use, pensions, training, cleaning, security, uniform and computers.

Deputy Chief Constable Francis Habgood acknowledged £529,000 in cuts to overtime could have an impact.

He said: “There are risks with that, particularly if we get a number of serious incidents throughout the year but it is a risk we need to take.”

He said staff representatives have raised the ‘operational impact of these on operational resources’.

Chf Const Thornton said: “There is some risk. We think the risk is within tolerable limits and I don’t think it will significantly impact on the frontline.”

Overtimes risk were ‘minimal’ she said.

The £3.4m cut is on top of £4.8m of savings already indentified to make the books balance this year.

The force is overseen by Thames Valley Police Authority.

Its 28 members received £271,589 in pay and expenses last year, the latter covering food and drink, travel and childcare.

The authority has not recovered £5m invested in Icelandic bank Landisbanki, which collapsed along with other institutions in October 2008.

A UK-wide team is bidding to get back nearly all the cash for councils and police authorities – but warn it could get back just a third of deposits.

Chief constable Sara Thornton was paid £165,295 last year, 2009/10, with £1,519 ‘benefits in kind’ and a £37,426 contribution to her pension.

She received a £22,261 bonus in the previous year – but not in 2009/10.

Chief executive Jim Booth got £99,933 with an extra £3,891 for untaken holiday allowance.

Monitoring officer Paul Thomas – whose role is to monitor for illegality and maladministration – had a £66,934 salary. His role is part time, 22 hours a week.