Proposed reduction of hours for Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs)

I have written to the Staffordshire Commissioner for Police, Fire & Rescue and Crime alongside other Staffordshire MPs to encourage him to rethink cutting the hours of our local PCSOs.
 
Please read our letter below.
 
Dear Ben,

We are writing as Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Labour MPs to request that the ongoing plans to alter the hours of work, and by extension pay, for Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) is reconsidered in light of recent and upcoming announcements by the Policing Minister.

PCSOs are the frontline of policing within our communities, and we all know the key role they play in the prevention of crime and engagement with our local communities.

Staffordshire Police’s proposals will mean less PCSOs out on the beat, in our communities where they belong and where the residents we all serve want to see them.

The changes are not supported by PCSOs or their representative union, UNISON, with 99% saying in a consultative ballot that they are prepared to take industrial action to prevent this going ahead. It would be the first time in history that PCSOs have voted to take industrial action.

The Police Reform White Paper is due to be published this week which, as per a letter from the Policing Minister sent to you last week, will give forces greater flexibility around policing numbers. This change has come following conversations that we have had as Labour MPs with Home Office ministers. This is something that you had called for too, along with chief constables and trade unions.

Police and Crime Commissioners are to be abolished with this money going directly into frontline policing in our communities. We cannot have a situation where hard-working and embedded PCSOs are lost only then for them to be returned when PCCs are abolished in 2028.

Cost saving measures have been proposed by UNISON Staffordshire Police Branch but these have been dismissed and not given serious consideration.

Given that Government has given greater flexibility around policing numbers, additional funding is coming into the force through the abolishment of the PFCC role and an uplift through the funding formula; we believe this all means the force must urgently reconsider its proposals.