The police force that last week claimed it did not have enough cash to fight migrant crime has spent more than £500,000 on new Volvo cars for top officers to use when on and off duty.

Cambridgeshire allows the officers to use the cars for holidays, shopping trips and other “social and domestic pleasure” purposes as well as when they are on duty.

It has bought 21 Volvo XC70 estates for all its superintendents and chief superintendents, partly as a perk to attract new recruits. They cost at least £33,000 each and, in the words of Volvo’s marketing literature, they “aim to spoil”.

The purchase was approved by Julie Spence, the forces’s chief constable, who last week said she needed extra cash to tackle a sharp growth in crime involving foreign nationals.

She said there had been a dramatic change in the make-up of the population in the county with new migrants presenting fresh challenges for her officers.

Spence singled out the fact that officers were dealing with 100 languages without the right skills – a situation that had landed the force with a translation bill of at least £800,000. She demanded an extra £2.7m to help pay for 25 new officers to tackle the workload.

But her comments provoked surprise among colleagues elsewhere in Britain. It prompted one of them to disclose that the force has recently spent more than £500,000 on the car scheme.

One officer said: “I was surprised when I heard about it. A lot of junior officers will be asking why they don’t spend this money on more officers or more patrol cars.”

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