It's four weeks early for April Fools' Day (Revealed: hidden government plans to privatise the police, 3 March). Not only is the list of functions to be privatised "breathtaking", the very principle is preposterous. The bottom line for profit-making enterprises is – the bottom line. The relationship between the Met police and private news corporations should alert us to how the interests of private profit can distort those of the public good when the relationship gets too close, perhaps above all in the area of policing.
Tellingly, West Midlands police has said that the proposal "is aimed at totally transforming the way the force currently does business". The point is that the police are not there to "do business". The record of private firms such as G4S in private prisons, immigration detention centres and deportations is, frankly, not so shining as to inspire confidence.
What next? Privatising military functions? MI6? We only need look to the US, from where the model comes (and from where it was profitably exported to Afghanistan and Iran), to see its future here.
Scott Poynting
Manchester
• To add to your disclosure that G4S and other private security companies are bidding for contracts worth £1.5bn for police privatisation, could I point out that G4S and other security companies (Serco and Reliance) are this week finalising national contracts worth £135m for asylum-seeker housing.
In South Yorkshire, where G4S is the preferred bidder, this will mean that 500 asylum seekers and their families will be dispersed from council property into poor-quality private rented housing. Over the past month local councillors, asylum rights groups, Unison, academics, churches and faith groups have campaigned to get the contract stopped.
G4S is not only finalising a contract which will privatise humanitarian housing provided by councils for the past 50 years. More importantly, perhaps, G4S is also a company which has managed detention centres, and provided escorts for deportees – in fact three of its escort staff are at present on bail facing criminal charges relating to the death of Jimmy Mubenga, an Angolan man.
John Grayson
South Yorkshire Migration and Asylum Action Group
• Far from eroding the public policing function, private companies could bolster it. Private involvement in policing is already widespread, and greater use of civilians has improved services and reduced waste. In many areas, civilians have freed up resources otherwise spent on expensive officers to do jobs in business support and control rooms that do not require warranted powers.
Our research supports the view of Ian Blair (Comment, 5 March) that there is scope to go much further. There are at least 7,000 officers currently in roles that could be filled by civilians, thereby costing an extra £150m every year. But cost savings are a by-product of outsourcing, not the objective. The real aim is to free up officers – the most valuable asset a force has – to fight crime.
We can all work to prevent crime, but only warranted officers can arrest offenders and that special power should never be given away. But any reform that puts more officers in a position to fight crime should be seen as an opportunity, not a threat.
Blair Gibbs
Crime and justice unit, Policy Exchange
• How is privatisation of parts of our public services presented as a means of making cuts and saving money (Police chiefs say privatisation 'only way' to tackle cuts, 5 March)? I can see how there might be cuts: in numbers of jobs; in status and wages of the staff in the newly created private companies; and probably in their employment and pension rights. But let's ask how these private companies make their profits. And why should they, when it is our taxes that are providing their business income? I imagine there will be no cuts to the aspired salaries and bonuses of the company directors.
Less desirable cuts will be to the Inland Revenue and National Insurance coffers, once the privatised sections of the police have set up their businesses with offshore money, huge tax-avoidance schemes arranged for the directors and managers, and an employment pool of low-paid staff or consultants on short contracts paying far less tax than our current police's PAYE. And when it all goes belly-up, there will be a hugely expensive inquiry or two, no doubt paid for by us, the public, and the fat cats will walk away scot-free.
Dr Susan H Treagus
Manchester
• Ian Blair declares his hand as chairman of Bluelight Global Solutions, a company formed by ex-senior police officers. They include Bob Quick, ex-assistant commissioner for the Met police, Paul Hancock, ex-chief constable for Bedfordshire constabulary, and Bill Hughes, ex-director of the Serious Organised Crime Agency. It is no surprise that they advocate private-sector delivery of police functions now that they make their money from the private sector.
Paul Richards
Eastbourne, East Sussex
• Having spent much of the 90s working as a detective and witnessing first-hand the effect that the then newly created performance targets had, I can easily envisage the future of minor crime investigation. When these targets were introduced, a culture of "manipulating" the figures became commonplace and it's difficult to see how a private firm, almost certainly contracted on a performance-led basis, won't fall into the same trap.
We are in danger of turning detective investigation into the equivalent of a call centre operation where poorly paid staff are financially incentivised to "massage" the figures on a scale never seen before.
Lee Sugden
Kirtlington, Oxfordshire
• Why rush to privatise the police? Lord Leveson has shown we already have the finest police that money can buy.
Steve Elliot
London
• Sir Ian Blair thinks the private sector will provide "temporary access to skilled staff – such as murder inquiry teams" at a cheaper rate than applies currently. Does he think that outsourcing companies currently have such skills sitting idle ready to deploy? Surely the only sources of such skills are the existing murder inquiry teams in police forces throughout the country? Is the plan to Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment Regulations (Tupe) these teams to the private sector at lower wages and with no pension? What impact will this have on morale and efficiency? It sounds like a disaster waiting to happen – like the recent outsourcing of court interpreting services. Wouldn't a more radical and fundamental change be to call for a general election and have a properly funded police service?
Tony Clewes
Walsall, West Midlands
• Plans for a privatised police service seem to ignore the importance of consent in the operation of authority. We recognise – broadly – policemen and other crown servants as a personification of our own state, bound by oaths and a history of public service. We consent to their instructions largely out of habit, respect and tradition. But nobody operating in a private capacity is going to have that benefit, and no force on earth is going to make an unconsenting populace governable. Put bluntly, I'm a generally law-abiding citizen, but I'm not going to stop for a G4S patrol car and if the fellow inside tries to detain me, he'll have a fight on his hands.
Bernard Lyall
London
• May I suggest that criminals hurry to buy shares in the relevant companies. Then they win either way.
Trevor Hussey
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire