Police criticise civil warden proposals

21 Feb 02
Home Secretary David Blunkett's plan to beef up police forces in England and Wales by using civilian warden patrols is an impractical 'tinderbox' that will encounter legal difficulties, according to the Police Federation.

22 February 2002

The policemen's body also told MPs that it opposed a plan to impose more performance indicators on the grounds that it was 'bureaucratic, costly and distant from what the public requires from the police'.

In a damning response to the Police Reform Bill, Clint Elliot, the federation's general secretary, told the Commons' home affairs committee on February 14 that he had 'grave concerns' about the extension of police powers to community support officers.

Blunkett's bill, unveiled in January, aims to allow experienced officers to focus on serious crime by transferring routine duties such as traffic checks and anti-vandalism patrols to voluntary CSOs.

Under the plan, CSOs would be granted powers to detain suspects until the police arrive. But Elliot told the committee that the federation was 'against giving people pseudo-police powers' and added that officers and the public were also against the proposals.

Elliot argued that detaining suspects meant, in effect, an arrest, and that there would be legal implications in areas such as suspects' right to know why they had been detained.

'It's a potential tinderbox in places like London because of the negative way the police are viewed,' he said.

PFfeb2002

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