HAVING read your Daily Echo comment for July 9 about the Police and Crime Commissioner’s plan to spend £250,000 on five new managerial jobs, I must say that I am surprised that anybody didn’t realise this sort of thing would happen.

I was posted in 1976 to what in those days was F Division of the Hampshire Constabulary, consisting of Shirley Police Station, Portswood Police Station and Southampton Central.

To deal with our admin we had a uniformed chief inspector stationed at Southampton Central.

He dealt with all the admin on his own, including doing his own filing. When he went on leave his deputy, one of the uniform inspectors on shift, covered for him.

A short while after joining F Division somebody in Government decided that it would be a good idea for this position to be “civilianised”. And so it was, the first appointee did the job on her own without any assistants.

After a few years she moved on.

A new admin officer was appointed, and he wanted a clerk to do his filing, so a clerk was appointed. Then he had to have a deputy to cover when he away, so a deputy was appointed.

It was then decided that the filing clerk needed a deputy to cover for her when she was away, so a deputy clerk was appointed.

I cannot remember now how much a chief inspector was paid in 1976 but I do know that by the time this admin officer had finished building his little empire it cost more that what a chief inspector was being paid over the same period.

RE WELLINGTON, address supplied.