Wiltshire Police Authority has frozen its element of the council tax bill for 2011/12.

This means for a Band D property the authority will charge £157.77.

In return for freezing council tax the authority will receive funding of almost £1 million from the Government, equivalent to a 2.5 per increase in council tax.

Wiltshire Police plans to save £14 million over the next four years due to cuts in Government funding and estimates that up to 150 police officer posts and up to 200 civilian posts will be reduced.

In 2011/12 the police authority plans to save £4.6 million. These savings include losing 30 police officer posts and 90 civilian staff posts.

In this current financial year police officer posts have reduced by 69 through not replacing officers who have left or retired while civilian posts have reduced by 62, but most of the savings from these will not be part of the £14 million.

It was hoped the majority of the job losses among civilian staff in 2011/12 would be voluntary redundancy.