Police chiefs will make more than £30 million of cuts by 2017 – on top of £51 million it already needs to find by 2015.

Cash-strapped Sussex Police will make up the deficit by reducing officer numbers, shar- ing resources and operations with Surrey Police and sharing offices with other agencies.

Sussex Police’s Operational Delivery Report 2014, published yesterday, revealed the force would be recruiting at least 120 police constables, 120 special constables and 60 police community support officers during 2014/15.

But a spokeswoman said officer numbers would reduce because staff who left during that period would not be replaced, adding: “There is a savings programme that will require reductions and this will be achieved through vacancy management.”

Further savings will be made by continuing to share operations with Surrey Police, including the creation of a new jointly-funded Cyber Crime Unit to tackle the most serious online offences.

Other collaborations planned for the next five years include a focus on back office operations such as IT, human resources and finance to pr vide a “better service at a lower cost”.

Giles York, temporary chief constable, said in the report: “Over the past two years we have increased the extent to which we provide services jointly with Surrey Police.

“The next three years will see us step up the scale and pace with which we do this. 

“We are aiming to align all aspects of our operational and support activities, wherever this is legally or practically pos- sible, whilst remaining accountable to local people.

“One thing we will not be doing is privatising great swathes of policing functions, although working with the pri- vate sector is not new. We out- sourced some custody functions to a private company some years ago.

"We are now considering whether an outside organisation should provide certain business support functions, but this is the extent of our plans at the moment.”

Over the next year the force will aim to make £11 million in savings, which forms part of £51 million of cuts by 2015. From 2015/16 it will aim to make even further savings, up to £32 million, by the end of 2017.