A new tax on every household to pay for community policing

The 'community safety levy' will be charged by directly- elected local police boards and the cash will have to be spent on making each area's streets safer. 

The Home Office claims the levy will dramatically increase accountability, but critics fear it could play on the public's need to see more bobbies on the beat and lead to large increases in taxation.

In demand: The public wants more police on the beat

In a separate move, ministers are also promising to 'embed customer service culture' in the police, provoking fears of yet more red tape. 

The new charge would replace the unpopular police 'precept', an additional levy which appears on all council tax bills in England and Wales.

The precept raises £2.5billion a year for police authorities, but residents have no say in how the cash is spent and little opportunity to protest if it is squandered. 

That is because police authorities are not directly elected. Their members are 'co-opted' from councils and other public bodies. 

The Home Office's plan  -  part of a drive by Gordon Brown to give the public more say in policing  -  would scrap the precept and turn the authorities into directly elected bodies.

They would then be entitled to charge the public the new levy, but on the specific grounds the cash was poured into neighbourhood policing.

The precept has been at the centre of controversy, not least because it has soared by around £1.5billion since 1997. 

Critics argue that only around £800million of that has gone on recruiting more officers.
Whatever the changes, the bulk of the police budget, which pays for most everyday tasks, will still come straight from Whitehall, courtesy of the income and business taxes paid to the Treasury. 

Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: 'Taxpayers are already paying more money directly to the police but they haven't seen a rise in the number of policemen on the beat, so they're rightly wondering what has happened to the money.

'If the Home Office think they can get even more money by rebranding the police precept, they are underestimating the intelligence of the public. People are feeling short-changed, they want to see results.'

The levy is similar to Tory proposals, but without the same safeguards for the public.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: 'The council taxpayer in the past has been fleeced by the police precept.

'Its increase has more than paid for the increase in officers and, to add further insult, these officers spend less than 20 per cent of their time on the beat.

'Conservatives would ensure that not only would directly elected police commissioners control the precept but any increase beyond a certain level would have to be subject to local referendum.'

The community safety levy could also attract hostility from its choice of name, which invites parallels with the community charge, or poll tax, which caused a public revolt in 1990. 

It is proposed in the Government's Policing and Crime Reduction Bill which, as the Daily Mail revealed yesterday, would also allow ministers to hire and fire chief constables, raising fears about the service being politicised.

Other ideas being considered are making the police more ' customer focused'.

But a team led by Sir Ronnie Flanagan to tackle bureaucracy is likely to be disbanded, and there will be no proposals on changing health and safety law.

Mr Davis said: 'This paper exposes the hollowness of Labour's pledges on police reform. Instead of taking steps to cut bureaucracy, the Government have ditched the Flanagan Report and ruled out the bonfire of paperwork and red tape that the police so desperately need.' 

He went on: 'Adding insult to injury, the Government now plans to impose a "customer service culture", which can only lead to more time wasted on form-filling and box-ticking.' 

Policing minister Tony McNulty said: 'No one is advocating more bureaucracy and box-ticking. David Davis should wait until he is aware of the Government's proposals.'

A Home Office spokesman declined to comment on the community safety levy.