Published Thursday, 03 September 2009
The board's meeting with Paul Goggins and senior police officers will take place on September 15.
On Wednesday, the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) wrote to the board calling for the cutbacks, which they said were required as a result of the economic downturn.
An NIO spokesman said: "The government has set itself a target of achieving £5bn savings in the 2010/11 year as part of the response to the wider financial difficulties facing the economy.
"That target will require NIO to make its share of savings and the PSNI are as much a part of that as anyone else."
But the NIO has denied it would tell the PSNI how to make the savings.
"It is wrong to suggest we will somehow make the changes ourselves if the PSNI do not - that is just not the way policing works.
"But we will want to discuss with the PSNI and the Board the impact of the savings and be assured that the best possible use of resources is made here as elsewhere."
'Unacceptable'
The police service has already seen its budget cut by £71m last year and faces further cuts of £74m in the coming two years.
Policing Board chair Barry Gilligan said the call for an additional £17m cut was unacceptable and would impact on frontline policing.
"This £17m cut is not acceptable to this board and to the members of this board."
Acting PSNI Chief Constable Judith Gillespie conceded that meeting the NIO request would be "challenging and difficult".
"We are right down to the wire in terms of what we can cut into," she said.
"If we don't have flexibility in our budget we are going to have great difficulty moving forward."
She added: "If we don't have that flexibility there is no doubt that front line services will suffer, so without that flexibility we are going nowhere."
This summer the Policing Board agreed plans to sell off 26 police stations across Northern Ireland.
Last week, a leaked document, compiled by senior officers and marked "restricted", revealed that the police lost 704 frontline officers in the past three years and that 61% of officers' time was spent inside stations rather than on the beat.
'Budget crisis'
The development comes amid ongoing negotiations over the devolution of policing powers, with local politicians insisting that the move must backed by appropriate financial support from the Treasury.
Board member Basil McCrea said these cuts will hit a police service already under financial pressure.
"It would appear to me that the police budget is in crisis," the UUP Lagan Valley MLA said on Wednesday.
"It is hard to imagine how these cuts will not adversely affect policing in Northern Ireland. It is certainly not what the PSNI need at this time."
DUP MLA Jimmy Spratt has also criticised the proposal.
"The DUP will vigorously oppose any resource changes which will have a negative impact on the quality of policing in Northern Ireland, he said.
"It is blatantly clear that this is not a time for either a reduction in the police budget or a reduction in the complement of police numbers."
Sinn Fein's Alex Maskey said the board was prepared to make efficiency savings where they were practical.
But he said that could not be allowed to compromise service delivery.
"We are not prepared to deprive people of the professional police service that they deserve," he said.