VOLUNTEER police officers are set to lose a £1,500 annual payment in a move by chief officers to cut costs across the force.
Currently, the 353 special constables working for Humberside Police are given the "bounty" every year as a goodwill gesture for their services.
The question that nobody seems to be asking is whether the "Specials" have been consulted before this decision was made. If the announcement had been "having discussed this matter with the existing Special Constables, it has been agreed that they will voluntarily forego this payment to help maintain existing levels of front line policing in these financially challenging times" then maybe there wouldn't be such an outcry.
Frankly this is a good example of where an elected "sheriff" (which at least one major party has as one of their policies) would make sense, having someone elected on the mandate of ensuring effective use of resources (£40K cars, police officers, etc) would make those making decisions directly accountable to the public who will be affected by them. But no, that would be asking people how their public services should be run, and we wouldn't want to do too much of that in case they give the wrong answers...
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