Mayor to look again at PCSOs

“Avon and Somerset Constabulary is the only force in the South West with a mounted branch.

The reason is that the Bristol Constabulary had a mounted branch and this was absorbed into Avon and Somerset when that force was constituted in 1974.

The horses and riders are often hired to other forces in connection with major football matches or large public order situations, so some of the cost is recouped that way.

They are also useful in covering large amounts of open ground searching for missing vulnerable people though helicopters also come into their own for such work.

Whether they are cost effective overall is open to argument. The police will say they are but for a lot of the time there are no major football matches, public order episodes or vulnerable missing persons, in which case they spend their time on patrol.

As for PCSOs, as presently constituted they are little more than adornments in police uniform though many people believe they are police officers as their uniforms are similar, so their presence on the streets does give some sort of comfort to some people, especially older residents.

PCSOs have minimal training compared with police officers and consequently are paid less.

I have no doubt whatever that PCSOs in time will gradually be given more and more and more police powers so that eventually they will be the primary and often sole uniformed constabulary presence on the streets.

The Conservatives in particular are hell bent on radically reorganising the police forces of the country and will regard the employment of PCSOs instead of police officers as a way of saving money.

The PCSOs won't be given much more training either to go with their new powers as that costs money. Some, perhaps the majority even, won't want to become ersatz police officers so may well leave if they begin to be given police powers. The Tories won't worry about that as they will consider that there are plenty of people in the jobs market who would be keen to be PCSOs with powers.

Couple this with an ever increasing presence of uniformed private security officers on our streets doing many of the routine things the police used to do and the Tories will be in seventh heaven at the thought of yet more money saved and the private sector taking over.

In time the likes of Group 4 (or whatever it's called now) could well employ all the police officers and PCSOs in a police force. Already some police custody units in parts of the country are staffed by private security employees.

So there is huge scope to save money on running our police forces. Whether it will actually work is another matter.”

“So, are these PCSO's effective? I don't know, does anyone?
Also, what about the police getting rid of the pretty horses that would free up some much needed money? or, are the horses effective?”

“Uncle George is showing his true colors...he is out of touch and out of his depth.

His supporters are Bristol 'Old Money' and he is merely a puppet of the Upper Middle Class.

Meanwhile an ambitious, young, poor black man named Marvin reflects on what could have been...but will never be.”

“He appoints a deputy mayor by offering Helen Holland a job on radio Bristol before having the decency to talk to her about it.

He sorts out the transport system by telling the Post where a bus route won't go, but before he works out if there is another route, throwing the whole plan up in the air.

He pulls the plug on the police, PCSOs before he has bothered to talk to the Police Commissioner.

There seems to be a pattern building here.

Working together?”

“"The reason that Bristol has PCSOs funded by the council is that just as they were about to be deployed about 6 yrs ago and after the detailed plans had been made the then government reduced the number that they would fund from year 2 onwards. So in other words they would pay the first year and then the local police authority would have to make up the difference.
Avon and Somerset suffers unfairly because of an anomily on calculations on budgets and is able to put out less police officers on the streets of Bristol than other forces in similar cities.
They faced a very tough choice.
With support from colleagues I did a deal to allow the full compliment to be deployed and to be fair to the Labour party when they were the administration a year later when the bill came in they paid up and the force has been maintained with some slight trimming since then.
We asked for and generally got a very good return on that investment with PCSOs doing some jobs that council staff would have had to do and the good partnership has been a key factor contributing to Bristol's much better than average fall in crime.
Of comparable cities we used to have the worst crime stats but now we are better than average.

So why are they so valuable.

They stay in the community they serve and are not tranfered away at a moments notice.

They do a lot of the basic time consuming jobs that free up fully warrented officers to do some of the bigger tasks.

They are that valuable uniformed presence on the street.

They break down barriers of distrust that some communities had with the police.

They are much cheaper per head.

All of this seems to have passed the Mayor by completely.They are not the only reason but they are a very important contributor to our success and the shortsighted budget proposal will cost Bristol very dear in years to come if not changed.

What though is very much the case is that Ms Mountstevens should fully recognise that Bristol city council has for some years done far more to help combat crime than other councils in Avon and Somerset and despite her budget squeeze she has to be prepared to help Us."”

“I think George will have a big queue at his door now, how many more U turns?”