North Yorkshire Police has announced it is to consider a major overhaul of how it operates to boost visible frontline policing amid a £14 hike in its share of council tax.

Conservative North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Zoe Metcalfe and force chief constable Lisa Winward made the announcement as they revealed they would ask residents to pay 4.99% extra council tax for the service, despite leaving more than 120 posts vacant.

A meeting of the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Panel yesterday was told the review could lead to an increase in uniformed officers attending incidents such as burglaries.

Ms Metcalfe told the panel of North Yorkshire and York councillors and experts that inflation was set to present an ongoing challenge to the force’s finances, so an operational and organisational review of the force would be undertaken for the first time in eight years.

She said the review would aim to deliver the best possible frontline and visible policing services, while a pause on the recruitment of police community support officers would create an opportunity to “redesign neighbourhood policing”.

However, the commissioner added she would be expecting the chief constable to “grip the force’s finances tightly”.

Two members of the panel highlighted that the force would be asking the average band D householder to pay £14.03 extra “when they will actually be getting less in terms of 50 less PCSOs and 74 less staff”.

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Chief constable Lisa Winward said there had been a huge change in the nature of demand since the force’s last overhaul in 2015, including “a massive increase in technology and the seizure of technology, an increase in child abuse and rising online crime”.

She said:

The meeting heard despite focused recruitment campaigns the force had been unable to recruit PCSOs as people were either joining the service as officers or were seeing “more favourable jobs” elsewhere, so the police budget needed to be spent elsewhere.

The meeting was told the precept increase would also be used for “urgent” service improvements, such as £1.9m extra to improve 999 emergency call handling times, 101 call handling time, and expand means of the public contacting police.

The report states: 

Costs facing the force are expected to increase by £18m, mainly due to pay rises and inflation.

With a £1.5m injection it is proposed to boost frontline uniformed response teams, which will see the number of officers rise to 1,645.

After the meeting, the panel’s chairman, Cllr Carl Les, said he did not believe it was a case of people paying more for less, but rather that residents would be paying more because of inflation, for a service that would be different in future.

He said: