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Crime (London)

I sometimes wonder where the Conservatives come from. If they ever talked to police officers in the community or knew anything about the safer neighbourhood teams, they might join me in complaining about the loss of our community support officers. The fact is that they are applying to become police officers. If we are to have any consistency in safer neighbourhood teams, we cannot use them as a training ground for police officers. Intelligence about and knowledge of a local area cannot be built up in a few months, and if someone moves on rapidly they never get that intelligence and we never get the full effect of safer neighbourhood teams. My complaint is not about police numbers but about the churn in police community support officers. Many go on to become police officers, because we are recruiting more and more. That means that we lose the intelligence and the knowledge of local areas that we need, which are vital to safer neighbourhood teams.