Fired and re-hired! Councillor's concern over PCSO "smoke and mirrors"

Our Friday piece highlighting the massive waste of resources on Lincolnshire's Police Community Support Officers which appeared in last week's Daily Mail (see £10 million scandal of do nothing chocolate crimebusters) has caught the eye of Boston councillor David Owens.
Co-incidentally, he has been in correspondence with Bev Smith - Boston's Assistant Director of Community Services - to ask what has been going on after the Cabinet apparently decided to withdraw funding to cover one PCSO post from the borough's budget at a meeting on 26th November last year.
He says that he understood that funding was withdrawn from the revenue, and that Boston Borough Council was not prepared to continue PCSO funding.
But, he continues: "It is clear that in order to appease certain quarters, Cabinet compromised with a proposal that discussions would be entered into regarding creating a service level agreement with Lincolnshire Police for a 12 month period, that would mean that PCSO's would contribute to the Community Cohesion Strategy - and thus
warrant funding from the COMMUNITY COHESION budget.
"1) Has this agreement been made? And has it been published?
"2) What measure will be used to ensure there is a direct and measurable impact on community cohesion to justify this allocation and spend? It seems a bit woolly to me!
"3) If the above spend can be justified, can you explain how the same mythology could be applied to the CCTV operation (and prevent the prospect of OUR staff losing their jobs for the sake of saving £34k)
"How can we justify funding recruitment for Lincolnshire Police (under the umbrella of Community Cohesion), whilst redundancy under the guise of cost saving for our OWN staff.
"I for one, am not at all comfortable with this action, particularly in the light of the stance Lincolnshire Police have taken in recent weeks relating to CCTV partner funding.
"I am becoming increasingly alarmed with the apparent use of smoke and mirrors to manoeuvre monies and funding from one heading to another, to meet pet projects that the Corporate Management Board and cabinet wish to pursue."
We think that an answer to these questions would be particularly interesting, as this seems to be a case of taking away with one hand and giving with the other ... and in this case to the detriment of staff.
Congratulations to Councillor Owens for raising questions that are especially pertinent in the wake of the Mail piece which showed that in three years Lincolnshire PCSOs handed out 15 fines - mostly for minor cycling offences - in exchange for a pay bill of almost £10 million .... a cost of £650,000 a time.
It makes the suggestion of saving one day a week from the borough's management pay bill pale into insignificance in comparison.
We've said it before, and we'll keep on saying it, PCSOs are a complete waste of taxpayers' money, and councils like Boston should stop featherbedding Lincolnshire Police by picking up their bills in any way, shape or form.

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