MORE SPECIAL CONSTABLES TO BE ON STREETS

Jacqui Smith yesterday announced a dramatic rise in the number of Special Constables.

At the same time, the Government’s commitment to recruit 24,000 Community Support Officers has been dropped.

The move has been seen as a tacit admission that recruitment of CSOs - given the nickname ‘plastic police’ because they receive less training and have fewer powers than regular officers - has stalled.

While community support officers are civilians and therefore cannot make arrests, Special Constables have the same powers as regular police. However,
they are unpaid.

The Home Secretary announced funding to recruit and train 6,000 extra Specials over the next three years.

This will take total numbers back up to the 20,000 which Labour inherited in 1997.

Ministers originally wanted to recruit 24,000 Community Support Officers but the target has been quietly dropped with only 16,000 in place.

Labour’s enthusiasm for the civilian patrol staff, introduced by former Home Secretary David Blunkett in 2004, has been criticised by rank-and-file police.

They have claimed the funding for CSOs would have been better spent on ‘real’ officers.

The controversy reached a peak last year when two support officers who came across a young boy drowning in a pond in Wigan chose not to enter the water to try to rescue him.

Instead, they waited until a regular police officer arrived - by which time ten-year- old Jordon Lyon was dead.

Mrs Smith insisted that the increase in Special Constable numbers would not come at the expense of regular police.

She said that the latest recruitment drive would instead increase the overall size of the ‘policing family’.

But with Labour’s relations with the rank and file at rock bottom over a bitter pay dispute, there were accusations of more ‘policing on the cheap’.

Special Constables work for a few hours a week with their local force in their own time, but receive only travel and meal expenses.

They carry out foot patrols, often providing extra manpower for special events or targeting-crime hotspots.

Mrs Smith said yesterday: ‘Special Constables are a vital part of our modern police service. Every day of the week, Specials are making a real difference.’

The funding will go towards training more Special Constables, along with the appointment of nine regional coordinators in charge of recruitment.

LibDem spokesman Paul Holmes yesterday welcomed the prospect of more Specials.

But he added: ‘While the Government is giving with one hand, it is taking away with the other by refusing to give police officers their full pay award, which has seriously undermined morale.’

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said that the move would simply restore the Special Constables lost since Labour took office.

He added: ‘Labour’s mismanagement means the public are not only paying more for policing, but seeing fewer officers on the streets fighting crime.’