Financial Services, Legislation, Lithuania, Security, Wages

Although the new scheme is yet to be assessed by the Interior Ministry, criminal and public police has moved into joint stations across Lithuania.

"All commissariats in Lithuania are working according to a new model," Ramunas Matonis, spokesman for the department, told BNS.

The top leadership of the department launched the reform last year, saying it would boost public security, increase the number of police officers on patrol and improve working conditions for police officers. Some of unnecessary buildings and some employees were made redundant during the merger of public and criminal police functions in commissariats.

Matonis said the reform had raised the number of police officers of the streets. At the beginning of last year, an average of about 200 police teams could respond to calls at a time, while the gradual transition to the new operational model has led to increase of the teams to over 300 over the first six months of 2017.

The police leadership said police officers were being taught to cope with new tasks and provided with more necessary equipment.

In Matonis' words, the police has stopped using 70 buildings across Lithuania since the launch of the reform.

He said the reform enabled the department to save money and raise salaries. The police seeks to increase the lowest monthly take-home salary to 1,000 euros in 2020.