HE took up the top job at a time of sweeping changes that saw jobs being axed, buildings being sold and the morale of his thousands of staff floundering.

As well as becoming the chief constable of a police force in the throes of making £55m of savings, Andy Marsh was appointed the boss at the dawn of a very new era with the arrival of an elected commissioner to hold his every move to account.

Today, as he reflects on a challenging six months in post, he has revealed howthe future is looking even tougher as he faces having to make a further £25m of savings over two years from his already stretched budgets.

Hampshire – currently the third cheapest police force in England and Wales – has yet again been dealt a blow by the Government with its formula- based grant system and subsequent “damping” leaving it millions of pounds down.

Mr Marsh says he “can’t offer any coherent explanation” why it keeps happening to the Hampshire and it is something the force is already appealing against.

But exactly what that is going to mean for his staff and for the people of Hampshire is a no brainer.

Mr Marsh admits that more jobs will have to go from an already severely streamlined force compared to how it looked just a couple of years ago.

What is more, the residents of Hampshire will most likely also be asked to dig a little deeper via the police precept of their council tax bill to help pay for their bobbies on the beat.

In other forces in England and Wales there has been talk of sponsorship to help ease the burden, but so far that is not something Hampshire Constabulary seems keen to do.

For Mr Marsh, the top priority is “keeping the fires burning” for the “amazing” people who work for him and making sure they are on board for the bumpy road ahead.

“It’s going to be difficult,” he admits, adding that last time around “lots of people said things were going to go wrong”.

But Mr Marsh says it is down to the “understanding, hard work and dedication”

of his staff that instead he has witnessed many good things – from reducing crime and antisocial behaviour, making significant dents in the drugs and violence on Southampton’s streets through the Operation Fortress campaign and securing convictions and lengthy sentences for some of the county’s most serious criminals following the murders of pensioner Delia Hughes and Jamie Dack.

“We cannot expose the public to a worse service but at the same time we are not going to do it by cracking the whip and telling people to work harder,” he adds.

So how exactly will the constabulary tackle a £25m black hole?

Jobs will have to go, bureaucracy will have to be cut out, there will be a greater focus on seeking restorative justice rather than the court system, more sharing of services with other forces and work will continue on advances in technology around digital filing.

There is also still much that can be done around the already depleted building stock owned and rented by the force says Mr Marsh, despite more than £40m being shaved off the bill by selling police stations and sharing community buildings.

He said: “Policing is an essential service for the public and I will look for the damping to be removed or mitigated and it’s currently under review... but we have some difficult decisions to make. I will work incredibly hard to protect frontline services and it’s my job to make sure it doesn’t suffer.

“It is for the police and crime commissioner to look at the precept but it is my belief that the public are happy to pay for a locally deployed, visible force where they live.”