£10 million scandal of do nothing chocolate crimebusters

We've mentioned Police Community Support Officers many times in these pages, so our views are well known.
Now - courtesy of the Daily Mail - we have been treated to some astonishing figures about the work of the PCSOs in Lincolnshire.
The paper reports that the number of PCSOs in the county has grown from 114 three years ago to 159, increasing the annual wage bill from £2.63million to £3.79million.
And what have they done to earn their money?
The have issued just 15 fines in three years.
It means each fixed penalty notice cost more than £650,000 in public money.
And ten of them were for one of two offences - having a dirty bicycle light or riding a bike on a pavement.
A quick count on the Boston Police website shows that we have 11 PCSOs covering the borough.
If you look at their list of achievements to date, most seem to be related to preventing people parking outside their local shops and schools and other motoring transgressions or else such politically correct and high sounding objective which really have nothing at all to do with what most of us would consider policing.
Don't believe us? They try this for size...
"Multi-agency has been undertaken to improving the area. New lighting has been erected, with new bins in place. Raising funds for new goal post and play equipment is on going. Council have been improving the cleanliness of the area. NPT (neighbourhood policing team to the uninitiated) has increased patrols in the area and held street surgeries in the park with the mobile police station and council. Youth services are interacting with the children every Wednesday at the park."
Lincolnshire Police tell us: "Police Community Support Officers are helping to provide an even better service to the people of the county. PCSO's are additional officers on patrol, providing extra eyes and ears for Lincolnshire Police out on the streets and extra resources able to tackle the kind of nuisance behaviour that adversely affects people's quality of life."
As well as their crime busting clean-up of dirty cycle lights, Lincolnshire's PCSOs seized tobacco 34 times and alcohol 192 times since 2006.
Using simple arithmetic, and dividing the £10 million wasted on PCSOs by 241 (the total number of times they taken some sort of "action") we come up with a unit cost of £41,493 a time.
Forty thousand quid to confiscate a can of lager from an underage drinker!
Forty thousand quid to "seize" a packet of fags.
Forty thousand quid to impose a spot fine of £20 - the going rate for cycling on the pavement.
Just think how much they could rake in if they set their sights on cyclists in Boston, who travel everywhere on the pavement with a total disregard to the safety of pedestrians - a growing problem that is forever ignored.
But of course they don't because they are seldom seen on the streets - which means there is no case to be made for the "invisible" benefits of a visible deterrent.
Either PCSOs are not doing their job properly or the police aren't making proper use of them.
If you sacked the lot, the cops wouldn't need all the extra council tax they keep moaning that they must have.
One member of the Lincolnshire Police authority was quoted by the Mail as saying: 'People aren't daft - the public know that this is just policing on the cheap."
Policing on the cheap?
He's got that one dead wrong!

Write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence if requested.