Hundreds more town hall staff to get police-style powers

[Ali Admin]

Hundreds more town hall staff and private security guards are to be handed police-style powers in a fresh Home Office drive to create an army of civilian "spies".

Hundreds more town hall staff to get police-style powers

Almost 1,700 people, also including car park attendants and dog wardens, already have powers to hand out a string of fines and even take photographs of low level offenders under the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme.

But the Government has quietly announced it plans to review the scheme with chief police officers to see how it can be expanded further.

Soon everyone will be working for, or on behalf of, the govt. I wonder who will be paying for them all? Oh, silly me, it will be the taxpayer. But the silver lining is that these amateur snoopers will be much cheaper than the police.

Dylan Sharpe, campaign director of Big Brother Watch, said: "Those empowered by these schemes don't have anything near the proper training, experience or respect to try and boss around members of the public."

A leaked document last month suggested one in five police officers could lose their job under cost-cutting measures.

Up to 28,000 officers would be replaced by civilian workers — saving hundreds of millions of pounds — under suggestions put to a Workforce Council meeting chaired by Acpo and involving the National Policing Improvement Agency, the Home Office-funded body responsible for finding efficiencies within the service.

The Daily Telegraph also disclosed that forces are losing thousands of officers by freezing recruitment and replacing them with volunteer special constables.