Thread: Jacqui Smith pledges 300 new police

Our beloved home secretary has pledged an additional 300 'special community outreach' type police to specifically help build relationships with the Muslim community. The Muslim Council are objectionable to this idea, saying it will harm relations. So, just another waste of money on more non-jobs, a cynical spin ploy or actually of any use, freeing 'normal' police to get on with their regular work (manning speed cameras etc)?

Linky

Oh look , another initiative. How much longer do they think they can fool the public ??

What a load of old toss!!!!

300 more PCSO's with no power to arrest and every one knowing they have no power to arrest walking the streets for £25k a piece isn't going to halt anything never mind terrorisim
A complete and utter waste of time in my opinion I doubt it will even fill the gaps caused by real police leaving the force

What the lying bitch really means is that another 300 PC's/PCSO's will be diverted from their core tasks to carrying out another PR excercise.

If she really wants to put more effort into Anti-Terr thing, she should pass a little more funding to the Security Services who are not also required to the other policing stuff and then presumably the extra dosh will be in the hands of people who can concentrate on that

Wouldn't it be better to find another 300 police to, well... police?

Ms Smith said the 300 new jobs included police officers and civilian staff

My apologies, thread title was possibly a bit misleading. From this I'm reading 20 extra special PCSOs and 280 civillian staff to administer, process claims, create red tape and drink brews! Should make a huge difference!

There is a question as to whether or not there is any NEW money here, or whether or not it is being diverted from other resources in an already stretched budget (see any similarities here? :X )

Any old hoo. Why have an outreach programme? Lets just have the PC's whose area it is start getting out of their motors (that they are forced into by "Targetted Policing" (Read Quotas)) and start talking to these people themselves.

Hand out a couple of cards, get the face known, Tell Mrs Hussein that Inzi was a bit of a naughty boy yesterday - you know as Carrots said - Policing....

Originally Posted by Speedkuff

What the lying bitch really means is that another 300 PC's/PCSO's will be diverted from their core tasks to carrying out another PR excercise.

If she really wants to put more effort into Anti-Terr thing, she should pass a little more funding to the Security Services who are not also required to the other policing stuff and then presumably the extra dosh will be in the hands of people who can concentrate on that

She was getting flamed on the Today programme this morning, but claimed that these are new police officers rather than PCSO's and that they would be new appointments. Wasn't convinced personally as she appeared to be a bit too evasive about whether it was new money or not.

Mind you Jaqui Smith sounds evasive even on the rare occasions when she's talking sense!

Originally Posted by smartascarrots

Wouldn't it be better to find another 300 police to, well... police?

Now don't be so silly, this thread is for serious comments only!

as an aside, 25K and no actual responsiblities, where do I sign up?

Its not really an extra 300 rozzers at all, as Humberside has recently announced it will be getting rid of 300 constables.

Seems like someone has been getting announcement tips from the SoS for Defence.

What a load of tosh. Due to the reducing budgets from the home orifice to the police forces SWORN (ie real) officer numbers will reduce dramatically by 2011. My force, for example, of 1600 officers is due to lose about 150 posts by then. That's almost 10%, though i dare say PCSO numbers will continue to rise.

Another Home Office happy happy headline, but it won't achieve anything. They want to plow the money into a PA for every shift to sort out their paperwork and allow tham back on the streets.

"They want to plow the money into a PA for every shift to sort out their paperwork and allow tham back on the streets."

EXACTLY!!! I recently did a ride along with an american bobby in Florida in a similar sized force to my own. We spent a shift together doing most of the same things that I would expect to do on a late turn except that I noticed that we hadn't gone back to the station for any clerical time.

I thought that this was a little strange and asked him if I was digging into his enquiry/clerical time by being along for the ride so to speak.

He looked at me as though I was an idiot and explained that in his force, he is a patrol officer and thus spends his time on patrol, the detectives concern themselves with investigation and all departments have a series of clerical assistants to dig through the paperwork.

We then carried out an arrest of a disqualified driver and I was shocked to find that instead of the 10-12 pages of crap and interview and custody time that I'd expect to carry out, they had a simple system.

Arrest the guy (Nice bloke to talk to actually)

Convey to police station. Book him in and fingerprint and photograph.

Write the arrest statement and complete 3 forms.

Convey to County Jail.

Book him in.

Resume patrol.

"Will you have more stuff to do afterwards?" I asked and again he looked at me as though I was some type of paperwork junky and said "No, that's it. How else can you spend time on patrol if you're inside?"

And when you consider that the US is one of the most litigious societies on the planet, it seems to me that the public is being hugely cheated of police presence on the streets by a systemic inability to manage the clerical burden which keeps us off the streets.

Even with target chasing, we could still spend more time doing more of the stuff the public wants if the clerical thing was done right.

Don't get me wrong, there aren't any conscripts in the police and yes I could leave if I hated it that badly but I think we could deffers do it more efficiently... A bit off topic but WTF

Originally Posted by psychobabble

Originally Posted by Speedkuff

What the lying bitch really means is that another 300 PC's/PCSO's will be diverted from their core tasks to carrying out another PR excercise.

If she really wants to put more effort into Anti-Terr thing, she should pass a little more funding to the Security Services who are not also required to the other policing stuff and then presumably the extra dosh will be in the hands of people who can concentrate on that

She was getting flamed on the Today programme this morning, but claimed that these are new police officers rather than PCSO's and that they would be new appointments. Wasn't convinced personally as she appeared to be a bit too evasive about whether it was new money or not.

Mind you Jaqui Smith sounds evasive even on the rare occasions when she's talking sense!

She didn't answer the question asked if they were new positions!!!! Talked over the interviewer and told her what she wanted to say, typical New Liabor!!!!! So from that ladies & gents, guess what you want!!!

[quote="psychobabble"}

She was getting flamed on the Today programme this morning, but claimed that these are new police officers rather than PCSO's and that they would be new appointments. Wasn't convinced personally as she appeared to be a bit too evasive about whether it was new money or not.

Mind you Jaqui Smith sounds evasive even on the rare occasions when she's talking sense![/quote]

Evasive doesn't even start to describe her performance on 'Today'. At stages it was developing into a shrill (scripted) rant, as she repeatedly rolled out her speech without answering the frigging question. Such a shame that interviewers are allowed to ask questions rather than sit there like good little people without interrupting or questioning such Very Important Ministers.