PCSO’s in Staffordshire are currently being consulted on proposals to change their working hours and responsibilities.
The proposals are of great concern to UNISON who have written to MP’s and Councillors in Staffordshire to highlight the problems we feel this will cause.
Below is the wording in our correspondence to them.
“We are writing to you on behalf of UNISON members working within Staffordshire Police to raise serious concerns about proposed changes to the working hours and duties of Police Community Support Officers (PCSO’s) which we believe will have a damaging effect on local policing and community safety.
We understand that you will have received information from Staffordshire Police highlighting that they are proposing changes to the shift patterns of PCSO’s which will involve reducing their working day by one hour and changing a 10pm finish to a 9pm finish in the evening. UNISON believe that the information you have been given is incomplete and as a result is misleading.
The proposals also include reducing evening coverage by changing PCSO duty hours so that only half of the workforce will remain on duty until 9pm, with the remaining half finishing at 7pm. Currently, PCSOs provide visibility and reassurance in our communities until 10pm, times when antisocial behaviour, youth disorder and public concern are often at their highest, and in particular during the hours of darkness when people most need reassurance and support. Instead of the current workforce all working until 10pm, they will be split into 2 groups of staff. Half of them will never work past 7pm and the other half will only work until 9pm.
The impact of this is that in the evening you will have a 50% reduction in staffing levels from 7pm and a 100% reduction after 9pm. Bearing in mind that the PCSO’s begin and finish their duties at their local policing base, they will in fact cease to be deployable after 6:30pm and 8:30pm respectively.
The reduction in PCSO’s deployable in the evenings means that the gap will need to be filled by more expensive police officers who will in actual fact continue to be drawn away from neighbourhood policing by the constant need to deal with immediate response deployments that we see as business as usual when 999 calls are received.
These proposed reductions will mean fewer PCSOs on the streets during the most crucial hours. Residents will see a noticeable decline in the visibility and accessibility of their local policing teams, undermining years of work to build trust, deter low-level crime, and strengthen community relationships. UNISON believe that this is against the spirit of the Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee and that it is as a direct consequence of years of underfunding in the police service, coupled with significant restrictions on Chief Constables to decide on the appropriate workforce mix by mandating police officer numbers. These things combined are leading to perverse decisions such as this, which see neighbourhood policing and community safety put at risk.
In addition, the force plans to extend the PCSO role to include taking victim and witness statements, a task that will take them off the streets and into workplaces, offices and homes for significant periods of time. This change risks transforming a highly visible, preventative and community-based role into an administrative one, eroding the very purpose for which PCSOs were introduced: to provide a consistent, approachable, and reassuring presence in neighbourhoods.
UNISON members fully support modernising policing and improving efficiency, but these proposals will do the opposite, reducing community engagement and placing additional strain on already stretched frontline services.
Fewer eyes and ears on the ground will mean less intelligence gathered, reduced early intervention, and greater demand falling back on police officers, many of whom are already overwhelmed.
Neighbourhood policing works because of visibility, trust, and continuity. Diluting the PCSO community engagement role and reducing late evening coverage will weaken all three. We are therefore urging MPs to raise this issue with the Chief Constable and the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Staffordshire, and to press for a review of these proposals before irreversible harm is done to neighbourhood policing.”
