Even before the Council tax cut of £150 from the Mayor of London the number of Special Constables in our city has increased sharply.
The Government’s statistics on police numbers includes figure for Special Constables.
The number of police officers in London is 36,100. In 2010 it was 35,882.
Yet the Labour Party in Hammersmith and Fulham have ignored Special Constables in order to make a party political claim about police numbers falling. They have also used council resources to promote their fiddled figures.
This is an insult to the 149 Special Constables who serve in our borough. These are real police officers. They wear a uniform. They have a warrant card granting them the power to arrest people (unlike the Police Community Support Officers). They are on patrol a minimum of eight hours a fortnight. Often those are busy town centres on Friday and Saturday nights when beat policing is most appreciated. They are also unpaid.
I would like to think there would be cross party recognition for their work. Could their exclusion form the Council stats have been an honest mistake. I asked Louise Raisey, the Council’s Head of Communications, to at least correct the figures online. She refused on the grounds that she would have to put the “amended version through the internal clearance process”. That is code for her political masters wouldn’t allow it.
On a Saturday nights while the Labour councillors and council spin doctors are safely in bed the Special Constables are out on the streets wearing stab jackets.
The Labour Party should apologise to our Special Constables for ignoring the contribution they make.
Hammersmith and Fulham Forum 
I am a now retired special constable of 8 years service. I have often done a full day’s work in my “day job” and then gone and done an eight hour shift as a special until 4 or 5 am on a Friday night/Saturday morning. I have been injured, luckily only a few scrapes and bruises, whilst dealing with violent men and women. I have stood in the freezing cold for hours at a crimescene which releases a regular officer or PCSO. I have stopped someone in a cell from seriously hurting themselves or worse because they were headbutting a wall when they were high on drugs. Has Louise Raisey done any of this?
I will declare that I do not live in London but this is pretty routine stuff for specials all over the UK.
Oggie60uk I commend you for being willing to do that for society and those others that also do what you have done.
I am bit dismayed though that special constables are being used to make up for the cuts to the police force.