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Police attach great importance to frontline policing. In addition to increasing the frontline Police establishment, officers from Police Headquarters are being deployed to strengthen frontline duties in various Police regions, a Police spokesman said today (March 19).

In response to a report by a Chinese newspaper on March 18 that frontline Police officers on land regions would be reduced in the coming fiscal year while the newly-added manpower would be mainly deployed to the Marine Police Region and the Police Training School, the spokesman said that the newspapers had confused the establishment with the actual working strength figures.

At present, the Police establishment stands at 28 686 and there are 28 168 Police officers in the Force. The establishment will be increased to 28 869 in the coming financial year.

"The 183 newly-added posts are for frontline Police policing duties on land and not for Marine Police nor the Police Training School as reported in the newspaper," the spokesman said.

"Police attach great importance to Police frontline policing and will not reduce the number of frontline Police officers."

"In order to strengthen the manpower in various Police regions, we have deployed 850 Police officers from Police Headquarters establishment, such as the Police Tactical Units, to support various Police regions to perform frontline duties during this fiscal year," the spokesman added.

The spokesman added that the same quantity of resources would continue to be so deployed during the coming year. Therefore, the number of Police officers performing frontline duties would actually be increased in the fiscal year of 2001/02.

Police Report No. 3

Issued by PPRB

End/ 2345 hours, Monday, March 19, 2001 (RCH/PW)