A TOP level meeting which will be held at Trafford Town Hall will hear how government funding cuts have hit Greater Manchester Police.

The lunchtime police and crime panel meeting on Friday(Jan 30), will listen to a report presented by GMP's police and crime commissioner Tony Lloyd.

The meeting will be asked to agree to freeze the police precept for 2015/2016.

Mr Lloyd will also tell the meeting that 800 police officers will be lost over the next three years, who will leave voluntarily through retirement or natural wastage.

In the report prepared ahead of the meeting, Mr Lloyd said: "This presents operational difficulties as well as impacting on the employee age and racial profile of the force."

Mr Lloyd said measures would be put into place to mitigate the operational difficulties which would seek to mitigate a shortage of staff.

He explained: "A number of transformational service re-designs are proposed including local resolution teams which will bring greater problem solving skills in to our neighbourhoods, community operation rooms, which will bring local knowledge in to initial public interactions with GMP and further pilots are planned to explore the benefits of merging response with neighbourhood policing teams."

The commissioner estimates that by 2017/2018, GMP has to have identified and delivered cuts of £271m, a 39 per cent reduction against the 2010 budget.

The totals represent a funding shortfall of £43.2m in 2015/2016, a shortfall of £99.1m in 2016/2017 and £137.5m in 2017/2018.

He will tell councillors that for every 1 per cent reduction in government funding to police, it represents an additional requirement of cuts totalling £4m.