Hmmmm - quite emotive at times some of these messages so here's a few more thoughts for you all to chew over !
PAY : Would the role of a civillian observer attract the same rate as a Police Officer of, say 8 years experience - NO ! - so this would be a saving on the Annual wage bill for the Police Force concerned...
BUT : It seems that the majority of the "Pro" civvie observer regime concede that extra training in "Police issues" would be needed, which would then ADD to the cost and could even eat up those savings, especially when coupled with some of the comments below ....
One suggestion was to have "Special Constables" as civillian Air Observers and this (to my limited way of thinking) seems to contradict earlier suggestions that the Police Observer could be released to "Police the Streets"
Think about the cost implications of that :
1. You have to SELECT, TRAIN and EQUIP a civillian to be an observer AND a Special Constable ( £25K - £30K just to do this ? )
2. You then have to RE-EQUIP a qualified Police Observer for "The Streets" and RE-TRAIN him in the variety of endlessly changing facets of administrative work and procedures, that go hand in hand with "Policing the Streets"
So - How about this as a suggestion : IF IT AIN'T BROKE - DON'T FIX IT ! Leave the Police Observer where he is - doing an EXCELLENT job ( not just a "fairly good" job as mentioned by someone earlier ) and why not recruit more ex-military chaps as Special Constables - or even as Regular Officers - where they can then get their Policing experience and "sixth sense" which will stand them in good stead for a post as a Police Observer in a few years time !
Then there are questions of Trade Union involvement with civillian staff, refreshment break entitlements, and replacement staff for sickness / annual leave / maternity leave etc etc which I won't go into at this stage.
Hope this all provokes more healthy thinking on the subject :-) <img src="eek.gif" border="0"> <img src="eek.gif" border="0">