That explains a conversation I overhead at WH Smith the other day. Not good news.

While googling to remind myself what PCSO stands for, I came across this BBC story from back in March.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-31862695

The ironic thing is, I thought PCSOs were started up because they were cheaper than 'proper' cops but could take on many of their more routine duties. Now, if I've read the BBC story correctly, we're losing PCSOs so we can keep as many of our police officers as possible - though presumably they'll have to take back some of the tasks that PCSOs were doing.

No matter what we do we seem to go backwards.