That is the message from the Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Anthony Stansfeld and police Chief Constable Sara Thornton after a national newspaper reported last week that the force is set to lose 400 officers.

Mr Stansfeld told the Telegraph that because £1m equates to 20 officers, the £40m worth of cuts puts Thames Valley Police on course to lose 400 of its 4,000 officers.

But he told The Chronicle that no frontline officers will be going in the next year and vowed to lobby the Government to ring-fence police budgets to halt further cuts.

He said: “There is no imminent threat of 400 officers going.

“We have already taken £60m of cuts and we have done it without cutting the frontline at all. But we have another £40m to find. It is going to be very, very difficult.

“I think policing is the basis of a civilised society and if you reduce the police too much you will just incur a lot of extra costs elsewhere. I wish they would ring-fence the police.”

A report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) in July rated Thames Valley Police as “outstanding” for its financial management. It said the force is on track to achieve required savings of £58.9m by 2015 while only reducing the number of police officers by two per cent, compared to a national average of 11 per cent.

Ms Thornton stressed that senior officers have worked to minimise the impact of the budget cuts on frontline staffing numbers. She said: “While I agree that the prospects for the next spending review are bleak, may I reassure the public that we are not poised to lose 400 officers.

“We need to find another £20m of cuts by 2018 but I and the Police and Crime Commissioner will be doing everything we can to find those cuts elsewhere and maintain police officer numbers as much as possible."