HAMPSHIRE police has been hit by bigger than expected cuts – just one day after an adviser warned that the force was “at very significant risk” if crippling cuts continue.

The Home Office announced that the country’s overall policing budget will shrink by 4.9 per cent – or £299m – in the next financial year, 2015-16.

But individual forces will suffer deeper cuts to their grants, after cash was shifted to counter-terrorism work and to police complaints and inspection procedures.

As a result, Hampshire police will receive £197.1m in 2015-16, down from £207.1m this year – a reduction of almost six per cent in real terms.

It comes after the constabulary has already been forced to cull hundreds of jobs and over the next two years faces losing more than 500 officers in a bid to balance the books.

The force is also in the middle of one of its biggest shake-ups in decades. As previously reported, about 2,500 police officers, police staff investigators and PCSOs moved to other stations under plans to make budget cuts totalling £25m.

Simon Hayes, the elected Police and Crime Commissioner, declined to comment before the level of the Government cap on the force’s precept on council tax is known.

But John Apter, pictured, chairman of Hampshire Police Federation, heavily criticised the fresh cuts, warning that the force was already “on its knees”.

He said: “I simply don’t know how the force can make any more cuts without a significant impact on the work that we do. Already, we are making far more responses over the telephone, without a police officer attending calls, and officers are travelling further when they do respond.

“There’s absolutely no meat on the bone, because we will have lost almost 1,000 officers by 2016. The Chief Constable and the Commissioner need to be realistic and tell us what we should no longer do.”

Yesterday, the Daily Echo revealed that Hampshire Constabulary’s Strategic Independent Advisory Group had issued a stark warning about its future, in a call to arms to county MPs. It suggested that neighbourhood policing could disappear from Hampshire if the cuts continue – “leaving only response to 999 and major incidents”.

But policing minister Mike Penning denied that there was a looming crisis, saying that crime had fallen by more than a fifth under the coalition.

He said: “Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary recently found that forces are successfully meeting the challenge of balancing their books while protecting the frontline and delivering reductions in crime.”

But Sir Huge Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, criticised the top-slicing of budgets, saying: “Most forces would prefer that this money was left in their budget to spend where there is most need in their force.”