In the car park behind Bedfordshire's police headquarters, 57 new recruits are marching in preparation for their passing-out parade.
Booted, helmeted, and following instructions barked out by their trainer, this corps is bringing urgent support to a force whose efforts to save money have resulted in officer numbers falling by nearly a fifth under the present government.
Bedfordshire was one of only three forces criticised by the police watchdog this summer for its response to countrywide budget cuts: inspectors raised concerns that officer levels were so low that "effective policing" had been put at risk.
Chief constable Colette Paul - appointed last year to sort out the financing and operational problems facing Bedfordshire - is open about its deficiencies. "I'm going to be really frank," she says. "I think [police] response times were not as good, and they still aren't as good as they need to be."
While all 43 police forces in England and Wales have had to make savings, Bedfordshire has fared particularly badly.
Even before spending cuts, it struggled, as a rurally funded force dealing with metropolitan challenges: it covers Luton airport and the associated smuggling and trafficking risks, and has higher than average incidences of terrorist threats, organised crime and firearms offences.
In most areas of the UK, crime has gradually fallen, but in Bedfordshire, it has gone up in the past year.
A period of turbulence in the local drug market spurred a three-month spree of violence in 2013 during which there was a murder or shooting every other week. Armed officers were deployed to patrol the housing estate at the centre of these attacks while, back at headquarters, senior staff wrestled with how to cut 17 per cent of the budget - or £20.8m - by the end of the parliament.
By far the biggest savings have to come from staff costs. Together with Olly Martins, Bedfordshire's Police and Crime Commissioner, Ms Paul has devised a cuts strategy based on selling off under-occupied police buildings and applying for one-off Home Office funding to pay for work on specific threats such as terrorism.
But as local residents have noticed, the thin blue line is becoming thinner.
Initially, the force was set to lose 18 per cent of its 1,246 officers, but after the watchdog raised the alarm, a recruitment drive was put in place to lower the figure to 14 per cent.
To maintain visibility on the streets as officer numbers fall, Bedfordshire is greatly increasing its numbers of "special constables" - trained volunteers with full police powers - who contribute a minimum of 16 hours a month on patrols or with specialist teams. Under current plans, the force will boost the 210 specials it has now to 320 by 2015 and 500 the year after.
Mr Martins explains that rather than being a reserve force to help out at football matches and with Saturday night rowdiness, special constables will be more involved in other areas of policing, including serving warrants.
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FOLLOW USΑκολουθήστε τη σελίδα του Euro2day.gr στο LinkedinThis local reserve is also crucial because, as budgets are squeezed in other areas of government, demands on police as the emergency service of last resort have grown.
Theresa May, the home secretary, has repeatedly asked chief constables to focus on cutting crime, but Mr Martins says that in Bedfordshire, the response teams spend at least half their time on so-called "safeguarding" work - such as dealing with the mentally ill, those in social care, or children who have escaped from foster homes.
"Quite often people will say: Oh, crime's coming down, so you need less police officers," Ms Paul says. "Actually . . . crime is only a tiny part of what we do. We do a whole range of other things, and I do think that is because other services have withdrawn. Friday afternoon becomes very busy. Other services that are not 24-hour go down over the weekend, the police end up picking [them] up".
Earlier this year, a local hospital called through to the Bedfordshire police control room because they wanted help tracking down a seriously ill patient who was not answering her phone. Officers duly found her and returned her to hospital. "Police are a can-do organisation, and we're not very good at saying no," Ms Paul says.
However, according to the chief constable, this will have to change. The prospect of a further 20 per cent policing cuts in the next parliament will necessitate what she anticipates as "some very difficult public conversations about what policing should do".
And Mr Martins, who was elected as Labour PCC, acknowledges that whichever party wins the election, more savings will have to be made.
"We haven't balanced the budget, we're still in deficit, we're still borrowing," he says. "But we've put our public services through a lot of pain in the process as well."
helen.warrell@ft.com
Twitter: @helenwarrell
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