Police taken off beat to fill in for civilian volunteer specials

Scotland Yard was criticised today for asking police officers to stand in for civilian workers who have volunteered to become special constables.

More than 400 of the Met's civilian staff work as "specials", earning perks such free Tube and bus travel.

But when they take time off to be trained, full-time police officers are covering their jobs, including manning police station front counters.

Peter Smyth, chairman of the London Police Federation, said: "The federation welcomes more special constables, as this would help our already beleaguered officers deal with London's communities and emergencies.

"However, it is unacceptable if on occasions those specials are replaced in their day job by fully warranted officers being taken off the streets."

Mr Smyth said the federation had documentary proof that police officers were being used regularly as stand-ins for workers such as front-counter and detention staff. "It is totally unacceptable, even if it is just one day a month, when a special who is not fully trained and does not have the experience takes their place on the streets," he said.

"When [the training scheme] was brought in, we were told this would not happen. I believe it will happen more and more and if the public knew I don't think they would be happy about it. The public are paying for warranted police officers to patrol the streets."

There are currently 2,494 specials within the Met, of whom 430 are employed by the force as civilian workers. After the foiled car bomb attack on the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket in June last year, 800 Specials were deployed throughout the capital to provide a visible police presence and reassure Londoners over the following days.

Met Commander Rod Jarman confirmed that some civilians' roles were being filled by paid officers while they were on training but said it was only on "rare occasions".

He added that having a fully trained force of specials was "a huge acquisition". He said: "What we get is a much more flexible working force, which can by deployed at times of very high need and means when we have these incidents we can maintain police rather than being overwhelmed by the demands for additional officers.

"In order to make London safer they [specials] are needed and on occasions we have to back-fill roles with paid officers, but we are getting something phenomenal on the back of it that is really powerful for Londoners."