Right move – wrong reason?

According to a BBC report, all police cafeterias across West Yorkshire are to be closed by August to save cash to spend on "core policing". Apparently, the force is "committed to an additional 250 police officers, 100 police staff and 20 communications operators over the next year", with its spokesman saying, "the saving on catering is a major contributing factor to these growth areas."

One can only hope that the police are not only allowed but encouraged to take their meal breaks "on the patch", in local restaurants and cafés, and that the public welcome them doing so. One often sees this in the US, where the police – in some states, at least – seem far more integrated with the communities they serve. Eating out in uniform, rather than retiring to the "bunker" for a subsidised meal, is good way of doing of increasing police/public contact.

With its genius for public relations, one might have expected the West Yorkshire force to "make a meal" – to coin a phrase – of this benefit, but perhaps it has not occurred to the hierarchy. The suspicion is that the right thing is being done for all the wrong reasons, which will do nothing other than reduce the morale of an already troubled force.