Sir, A high proportion of police force expenditure is on staff costs, and the largest part of this is on police officers (“Protection money”, leading article, June 29). But the most important factor is what we get for our money — how well does the Police Service do in reducing crime, bringing offenders to justice, maintaining public order and preventing terrorism?

Several studies have shown that much of the work currently done by police officers does not require the skills, training and coercive powers of a sworn officer. For example, less than 20 per cent of the work involved in investigating volume crime requires an officer; at least 25 per cent of the emergency 999 calls can be handled without an officer; and even counter-terrorism activities, such as guarding crime scenes, can be done perfectly adequately by a trained support officer. So we do have the prospect of “policing on the cheap” whereby we get as least as good a service for a cost at least 10 per cent lower. There will, of course, be a need for better management of resources, so that officers with the right skills are allocated to policing tasks. But chief constables who say that they need the maximum number of officers to maintain resilience (a posh way of saying “just in case”) are guilty of lazy management practices.

Without increased expenditure, this rebalancing of workforce skills will inevitably lead to a reduction in the number of officers, but there is no reason why it should also lead to less effective policing.

Dr Bob Harris

London EC2

Sir, It is time to reconsider the value of pouring limited resources into police community support officers. They cannot investigate crime, can arrest no one, and if there is any substantial police business to be conducted must call a proper police officer. Why the Government should think that such emasculated beings in uniform can offer reassurance to an anxious public is beyond belief. I suppose you can ask them the time.

Michael Cavaghan-Pack

Taunton, Somerset

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