Outsourcing computing systems to (say) the cloud could well be a political issue as well an ethical one given the sensitive nature of the information held. Outsourcing patrol (as the OJEU notice from WestMIds and Surrey police includes) could well be, um, a political issue.

There will be PCC candidates who will gloss over outsourcing as being purely a managerial issue – there will be other candidates who will declare outright resistance to any further privatisation and there will be still more who will say they are highly sceptical and who worry about the long term consequences.

I am in the third camp. Just as with the proposed extreme marketisation of the NHS that may well be about to slip ignominiously onto the statute book (notwithstanding this weekend’s LibDem conference – although I am not exactly holding my breath – I remain hopeful…) – what will suffer most in the creation of the nH$ is seamless & integrated care. Just as if PCSOs were to be outsourced to a private security company – this will mean that the public may only get to see a warranted officer in times of extreme stress.

When PCSOs were first introduced – many people argued against them (and still do) on the basis that community policing would be fragmented as a result of the public seeing ‘real’ police in only extreme circumstances. Outsourcing would take such a worry to another level.

I didn’t realise that outsourcing was a political issue. Do the police manufacture their own paper, computers, bricks and clothing, or do they buy these in?