The home secretary, Theresa May, has announced proposals to give stronger powers to police volunteers, police community support officers and other civilian staff. Allowing them to direct traffic, take witness statements and detain suspects, she suggests, will free up uniformed officers to concentrate on “proper policing”.
If done well, this could be a good thing – a way of supplementing the work of uniformed police officers, but not replacing them. With police forces projecting 35,000 job losses over the next five years, on top of 36,000 posts cut since 2010, radical solutions are clearly needed. And this idea builds on a centuries-long tradition of volunteering alongside the emergency services, such as by St John Ambulance and lifeboat crews. Indeed, there is nothing new about volunteers having police powers – special constables are unpaid volunteers with all the powers of a uniformed police officer, and they’ve been around for nearly 200 years.
At Nesta, we are exploring how ordinary people can support public services. We are working with the London Ambulance Service to roll out GoodSAM, a smartphone app that alerts registered first aid volunteers to nearby emergencies. We’re also supporting 10 hospitals to expand volunteers’ roles, such as keeping patients company during mealtimes, a task that nurses often don’t have the time to do.
To apply the same principle to new police volunteer roles – finding meaningful tasks that don’t need to be done by a professional – goes beyond managing cuts to improving what police forces do. For example, the government has suggested volunteers might help investigate cyber-crime. Nesta’s work on digital education has shown that with the right support, volunteers with day jobs in IT have the skills and technical knowledge to excite children about computing and digital technology. A volunteer tech crime squad would be another great way to harness the UK’s digital talent.
But it’s important to get the basics right, by defining roles, expectations and boundaries, and selecting, training and supervising volunteers properly. In such a sensitive area, issues of confidentiality, data protection and safety for volunteers and the public will be crucial – and tricky. For example, London Ambulance Service has had to put a lot of work into the legal and insurance questions stemming from its work on GoodSAM, such as what happens if a first aid volunteer is hurt when responding to an emergency.
There are risks with some of the powers that police volunteers might have – for example, issuing on-the-spot fines or detaining suspects. What happens when the first volunteer police officer is injured? Equally, it is important to make sure that the public is properly protected.
According to the consultation into extra powers for police volunteers, some forces don’t recruit security staff as special constables for fear that “they might be tempted to use their powers as specials” during their day (or night) job. With a wider range of roles, these boundaries will only get harder to police. If volunteers investigate crimes such as identity theft or fraud, the risks might relate to personal intrusion or commercial sensitivity rather than physical danger, but they’re no less real. Management – vetting, training, supervision – is as important for volunteers as for paid staff. And it isn’t free either.
There is potential for the creative use of volunteers to improve police services, but this shouldn’t – and can’t – be seen as a straight swap for uniformed officers.
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