Durham Police force reviews overtime

Durham Police Authority is to review overtime within the force.

It follows an earlier announcement from the Home Office, before the change in government, of plans to cut overtime by £70m a year nationally.

Since then, the new coalition government has announced further cuts of £1.3m to Durham's funding.

An overtime and deployment review is now under way, with the authority's audit and resources committee examining activity costs.

Mr Peter Thompson, chairman of the authority, said: "The authority is constantly looking at ways of providing value for money in policing and the addition of recent government budget cuts means this project is an ideal opportunity to look at streamlining policing costs"