by Ruth Banks rbanks@thekmgroup.co.uk

Kent Police has defended advertising for unpaid volunteers just days after its top cop warned up to 1,500 staff face the axe.

The force has raised eyebrows by launching a recruitment drive for around 200 special constables.

It followed a statement issued by Chief Constable Ian Learmonth last week revealing his fears that one in seven paid officers could lose their jobs.

Kent's top cop said he may be forced to make the cuts because of a savage spending review announced by the Home Office.

But Assistant Chief Constable Allyn Thomas insisted it was a coincidence of timing and specials would not replace paid workers.

He said: “We’ve been intending for a long time to increase the number of special constables. They just happened to come at the same time.

“But we have the capacity to train more specials at the moment because we’re not recruiting.

“We can convert the training activity that we would previously have used on regular officers to train the Special Constabulary, so it’s actually convenient for us.”

Specials have the same powers as regular offices but work on a volunteer basis.

The Kent Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said it feared it was a case of policing on the cheap.

Chairman Ian Pointon said: “I don’t care what anybody says, this is no coincidence.

"If you’re going to lose 500 cops you’ve got to replace them with something and they’re going to be replaced by the Special Constabulary.

“I’m a huge supporter of volunteer police officers – these are really public spirited people.

“I just think you can’t run a public service as if it’s a church bazaar with volunteers.

"You’ve never got the same call upon a special constable as you do on a police officer.

“They have day jobs where they earn their living to pay their mortgages and feed their families.

"And you may well find that they can’t turn up on a particular day, for very good reasons.

“With a regular officer you could tell them they have to be there, but you can’t do that with a volunteer.”