Blunkett's Bobbies 'have little effect in fighting crime', says police report

It said PCSOs  -  nicknamed Blunkett's Bobbies after the Home Secretary who created them  -  spend too much time filling out paper work in the office, rather than walking the streets.

A policemen's leader even described the civilian officers as a 'failed experiment' and called for money to be spent on 'real police officers instead'.

'Waste of money': PCSO's haver little effect in fighting crime, a report says

Shocking figures released last year showed that, on average, each PCSO solves one crime every six years.

The civilian officers hand out fines for anti-social behaviour, public disorder or motoring offences at a rate of one every four months.

In several areas, PCSOs failed to detect a single crime or write a solitary fixed penalty notice over the past year.

A fully-sworn police officer detects an average of 11 crimes a year.

Yesterday's report, by Kent Police Authority, endorsed those findings.

It said: 'Other than for vehicle crime, there appears to be little relationship between the presence of a PCSO and a reduction in crime.'

Of those members of the public questioned, 'only about six in ten felt that PCSOs represented value for money. Reasons for this included lack of powers, high staff turnover and restricted deployment hours.'

The report also said that PCSOs, 'do not appear to be the best option currently for reducing negative perceptions of anti-social behaviour'.

However, the report did find that the presence of PCSOs can have a positive impact on the community they patrol, provided that they make efforts to interact with members of the public.

'The importance of  'being seen' and interacting with as many members of the public at any level while patrolling should not be underestimated,' it said.

Ann Barnes, chairman of the Kent Police Authority, said that the report was the worst since PCSOs were introduced under the 2002 Police Reform Act.

'Our first report showed that where we had deployed police community support officers the quality of life of residents had improved and crime had lowered,' she said.

'However, this time our report has shown that in high-crime areas the impact hasn't been felt.'

Ian Pointon, chairman of Kent Police Federation, told the BBC that there was no role for PCSOs and the report showed that 'the experiment has failed'.

'It should be ended before more public money is wasted,' he added. 'That money should be spent on real police officers.'

PCSOs have been heavily criticised since they were introduced in 2002 by the then Home Secretary David Blunkett.

Their lack of powers led many to dismiss them as a gimmick and they have been loaded with nicknames such as 'Blunkett's bouncers' and 'Plastic Plods'.

The 14,000 PCSOs, who can earn up to £24,500 a year, have powers to detain suspects until police arrive and to hand out fixed-penalty notices for a range of traffic and public order offences.

Chief constables are under pressure to employ more of them rather than more expensive full-time sworn officers.