5,000 jobs under threat, police chiefs warn MPs

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They claimed that the "ever increasing" funding gap between costs and grants could reach up to £200 million over the next three years.

About 80 per cent of the national police budget is spent on staffing so any decrease would seriously impact on the fight against crime.

Senior officials from the Association of Police Authorities told MPs that 5,000 police officers - one in 25 - would have to be cut if the savings could not be found elsewhere.

"That's an absolutely worst case scenario and clearly all the police associations would be committed to avoiding that.

It's our intention to avoid that if at all possible," chairman Bob Jones told the Commons home affairs committee.

"But if we don't have the funding then we are in a dilemma as to where the savings are going to come from.

Clearly it is very difficult to make reductions of this sort without taking into account the numbers of police officers."

Police minister Tony McNulty admitted funding would level off over the next comprehensive spending review period but accused police chiefs of having a "pessimistic view" over looming job cuts.

"We accept the contention that we are at least plateauing in funding terms rather than the constant growth we've had in the last six or seven years," he said.

"But I don't accept the presumptions and assumptions behind what's going to happen over the next few years... that gets us to this huge funding gap."

However, he agreed it was a " reasonable assumption" to make that every £100 million shortfall would result in around 2,500 fewer officers fighting crime.

The Association of Chief Police Officers said it was concerned that relying on more efficiency drives or council tax increases to "plug the gap" would no longer be enough to make up the funding shortfall.