Blunkett wants public to pay top-up fee for more police

The public could get the option to pay for extra police for their local areas under a plan for Labour's third term.

Home secretary David Blunkett wants to offer communities a vote on whether to pay for more officers on the beat.

The amount raised locally would be matched by Home Office funds, he announced on 22 January.

The proposal has parallels with the Joseph Rowntree Trust's failed New Earswick project in 2000. In the scheme, in York, JRF Housing Trust paid £25,000 a year for 24 hours of policing time per week from the North Yorkshire constabulary.

But recorded crime doubled and tenant dissatisfaction with policing rose from 30% to 40% over the course of the two-year scheme.

Stuart Lister, senior research fellow at Leeds University, investigated the programme. He said that although the idea was innovative, there were doubts about its effectiveness.

"Local people thought a visible bobby on the beat was some kind of universal panacea for their problems – this is very rarely the case.

"There is a fundamental issue about operational control – do you get any say over what the person that you've paid for does?

"If the police aren't prepared to hand over any form of control, there will be problems."

Blunkett has not yet decided how to administer his proposed system or how to define those "communities" allowed to adopt the system.

Blunkett said votes could take place in estates or groups of streets. If a majority voted in favour, everyone in the area would have to pay an extra charge to the council.

A spokesman for the Home Office said: "One of the things we are looking very hard at is how we could ensure the funding didn't just go to those areas most able to pay, which are already adequately policed."

The Local Government Association has reservations about the proposal. A spokesman said: "If local people want to pay more for better policing, then the proper system is via the ballot box, voting for their local council."

However, Frank Field, the Labour MP for Birkenhead who last year proposed docking housing benefit from antisocial tenants, said: "I'm delighted with these proposals.

"This is how services will be paid for in the future.

"There is no way people will subscribe to general tax increases – any increases for new services will have to be negotiated."