The era of routine patrols by "bobbies on the beat" will soon end, two of Britain's most senior police officers have said, amid indications that 8,000 jobs or a quarter of the force may be lost due to reduction in funding to the tune of one billion pounds.
The comments have been made by the chairwoman of the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) Sara Thornton and Craig Mackey, the deputy commissioner of the Met Police.
They said funding cuts would lead to a transformation in investigating crime in the UK.
In an interview with BBC, Mackey said the Met was anticipating a one billion pound cut in funding, which could lead to up to 8,000 job losses - a quarter of the force. He said compulsory redundancies were now a real possibility.
The police service has been told to expect a 25 to 40 per cent cut in funding in next month's Comprehensive Spending Review, the BBC reported.
He said it was inevitable the threshold for investigating certain crimes would rise, which would involve victims getting a telephone call rather than an officer at the door.
The Met, he said, was also considering seeking funding from banks and other big business to help pay for investigations into certain offences - such as cyber crime.
"We are driving out costs everywhere we can but when you get to these sorts of figures it will be challenging...On our scenarios some of the services you previously got face to face you won't get in the future," he said.
Mackey said the force had to think of "completely different models of working" to tackle cyber crime.
"We should be working with business and industry to achieve that... And they can help with paying for that," he added.
Asked if that meant direct funding for policing programmes, he said: "Potentially. I think that is one of the things we are going to have to think about as we go forward."
Mackey admitted there were "all kinds of ethical hurdles" to consider and that it would not be comfortable for an independent police force.
"But we absolutely have to explore it," he added.
A certain amount of "Do It Yourself policing" would also help the force, he said.
On the totemic issue of "bobbies on the beat", Thornton, formerly chief constable of Thames Valley, said: "It's a difficult one because it's one of those features of policing that the public have come to like and respect over many, many years but in fact the evidence would say that random police patrol doesn't prevent crime, doesn't solve crime, it doesn't in fact make people feel safer."
Asked if she thought the days of routine patrols by bobbies were over, she said officers would "always respond to the pub fight, domestic abuse, to people in difficulty" but, in the future, patrols would not be focused on areas of low crime.
Bobby is a slang for a constable in British law enforcement.
