The British Home Secretary, Mr David Blunkett, unveiled radical plans to reform the police service yesterday, including proposals to give civilians powers to use "reasonable force" to detain suspects.
Under plans contained in a White Paper for police reform in England and Wales, the Labour government is proposing a new hierarchical civilian element within police forces, extending police powers to civilians to enable them to detain, but not arrest suspects.
The new community support officers, employed directly by individual police authorities, will join rank and file police officers on the streets and will be allowed to use a reasonable amount of force to detain a suspect until a police officer arrives. As well as community support officers, the White Paper also envisages granting limited police powers to employees of local security firms to act as the "eyes and ears" of the police within the community, such as at shopping centres.
The powers extended to the security firm employees will vary from force to force, but they will not include the power to arrest or detain suspects, and the powers will be reviewed annually by the police.
The proposals also mean that foreign nationals will be able to join the police for the first time and the oath of allegiance is set to change to include not only a reference to the queen but a pledge to protect everyone living in the UK, not just British subjects.
Condemning the proposals as a "major constitutional change" to British policing, the Police Federation chairman, Mr Fred Broughton, who represents many ordinary police officers, said extending police powers to the commercial security industry challenged the basic concept of policing by consent.
But rejecting the Police Federation's criticism that the reforms were privatisation "by the back door," Mr Blunkett told the Commons the aim of the White Paper was to raise standards across police forces, ease the workload and address high rates of sickness within the force.
The Home Secretary also brought forward by a year to spring 2003 the deadline for increasing police numbers to 130,000. It is expected that police numbers will reach 128,000 in England and Wales next year. Mr Blunkett also proposed extending his powers to enable him to remove a chief constable failing to bring down crime figures.