FRONTLINE police support will be vulnerable to cuts if the Government slashes budgets as expected later this year, insiders have warned.

The cost of employing Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs), who visibly support the work of regular officers, is expected to come under scrutiny in a new era of cost-cutting.

Devon and Cornwall Police Authority (DCPA) has just shed 100 posts of various types and is under a recruitment freeze.

And it is likely the Government will ask the DCPA, whose Home Office grant was trimmed this year by £2.6 million, to make further savings.

PCSOs patrol throughout North Devon and 15 work in Barnstaple, South Molton, Braunton and Chulmleigh. They provide a visible presence and deal with anti-social behaviour.

Inspector Roger Bartlett, of the Northern Devon Geographic Support unit, said: "Our PCSOs have done a fantastic job and integrated well into the policing family.

"The impact they are making in our communities is tremendous. We want to do all we can to ensure they remain as part of the police family."

And Sergeant Paul Jones, Barnstaple Neighbourhood Team Leader, said he would be "extremely frustrated" if any PCSOs were lost.

Nigel Rabbitts, chairman of the Devon and Cornwall Police Federation, believes PCSOs are vulnerable to cuts, and the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Sir Hugh Orde, has warned that reductions in police numbers are inevitable. A study by former Gloucestershire Chief Constable Tim Brain estimated that nationally up to 60,000 jobs, including PCSOs, could be lost by 2015.

Opposition politicians are concerned about a diminishing "thin blue line". But Home Secretary Theresa May said talk about widescale job cuts was speculative.

DCPA member Brian Greenslade said PCSOs had been a "boon" for North Devon and he would fight for them to remain. But he conceded that tough financial constraints could mean PCSO numbers dropping as vacant posts were unfilled.

Bideford Town Council will write to the Home Secretary, Chief Constable, and Torridge and West Devon MP Geoffrey Cox to express its fears about PCSO cuts. Councillor Brian Lacey said: "If we lose PCSOs we will never get them back, and rural areas will suffer."

A DCPA spokesman said the authority was "closely monitoring" recruitment of PCSOs but no further decisions would be made until after the Government's Comprehensive Spending Review in October.

Mocked in some quarters as "plastic coppers" for their lack of powers, PCSOs have proven popular with local forces and councils since they were introduced in North Devon four years ago, not least because they tend to have more time than police officers to deal with low-level nuisance.

Spending on police rocketed under the Labour Government. There are now many more officers, but there is more focus on specialist, rather than beat, roles.