SUSSEX Police spends more than £1 million a year on their communications and PR team.

The force has one of the highest expenditures in the country with last year’s total budget cashing in a total of £1,207,756.

The revelation comes as the police announced they had to cut 500 police officers and up to 500 police staff posts due to budget constraints.

The money is spent on 27 communications staff who administer the force’s public relations and answer queries from the media – of which they deal with around 840 each month.

The communications department also manages the force’s website and social media.

Mark White, secretary of the Sussex Police Federation, said the association were “concerned” with the amount of money being spent but said they “acknowledge the importance of having a strong communications team”.

The figures were uncovered following a Freedom of Information request by the Press Gazette which revealed nationally more than £36 million is spent on police communications.

Out of the 39 forces which provided details of their budget, Sussex Police’s was behind only the Metropolitan Police, Police Scotland, Surrey Police, Kent Police and Police Service Northern Ireland. The force said its corporate communications and public engagement department will also be making savings over the next four years to meet budget cuts.

Katie Perkin, head of corporate communications said: “We use communications to support operational policing, to help keep the public safe and to be open and transparent about the service we're delivering.

“The public now expects to access information and contact us in a variety of ways; for example reporting a crime on our website or interacting via social media.

“The media remains an important way to reach the public, however we also need to ensure that we are providing information through other communication channels too.“As a result our corporate communications department has changed, responding to increasing demands from the media but also growing public desire to access information in other ways.

“Alongside traditional media relations, the department could now be using social media to help find a missing person, running a campaign to encourage people to report domestic abuse or developing online services."

QUOTE:

“Whilst we acknowledge the importance of having a strong communications team, we are at the same time concerned that in the face of savage financial cuts to policing, the comms budget is set at its current level.

“In light of the recent announcement that 500 police officer posts are to go, we hope that the force will look very carefully at not just the comms department’s budget but at all departments to identify where further savings can be made which could possibly negate the need for so many police officer posts to go”: Mark White, secretary of the Sussex Police Federation.