Last updated 05:42, Friday, 19 September 2008

IT BODES badly for forces of law and order when the chief inspector of constabulary envisages future policing as a shrinking, penny-pinching operation, stealing from law-abiding Peter to pay Paul in his area of higher crime.

Not only does it strike as a cynical way of positioning cost-cutting at the heart of crime fighting, it also smacks of a policy that’s none too bright.

Cumbria would lose out catastrophically if proposals, put forward by Sir Ronnie Flanagan in his review of national policing, were adopted. Police here would suffer huge losses in funding – victims of their own success in achieving some of the lowest crime rates in the country.

Money previously used to maintain low crime rates would be diverted to areas where most crime is committed.

It does, of course, stand to reason – to most logical thinkers, anyway – that once Cumbria has been robbed of police and civilian support officers in favour of putting additional patrols on the streets of, say, Manchester, Liverpool or Leeds, crime would soon shift to fill the void.

There’s nothing quite like the promise of a clear run to attract gangs of determined offenders who prefer freedom to arrest.

But this scenario seems to be favoured by Sir Ronnie Flanagan. Cash flow from government, he says, should be “based transparently on objective need” – matching resources to where most crime takes place.

Cumbria currently gets millions of pounds more than it would should his funding formula be applied.

No wonder Cumbria’s Chief Constable Craig Mackey is appalled.

His force would effectively be penalised for a job done sufficiently well to give most of us the peace of mind, sense of protection and quality of life to which every individual is entitled.

Sir Ronnie’s clumsy approach to crime fighting says we in Cumbria deserve a higher level of crime than we know now. The news for Sir Ronnie is: We don’t.