Ministers are to be given the power to appoint and sack chief constables under plans to be unveiled next month.

The move by the Home Office to centralise control of the appointment of all 43 chief constables in England and Wales has sparked claims that it is trying to politicise the police.

This weekend, as the Home Office confirmed the plans would be published in a green paper on policing in June, the Tories said they reflected Gordon Brown’s “Stalinist reflexes”. Chief constables also expressed alarm.

One senior officer said: “This is a big centralising power. There will be a grave danger that chief officers, who in the past have done their best to do the job according to the law, will start to be more beholden to the people who give them jobs.”

At the moment, chief constables and their deputies are appointed by local police authorities that are made up of councillors, magistrates and independent members.

Under the Home Office plans, police chiefs would be sacked by ministers if their performance was deemed to be poor – if, for example, they failed to meet crime-cutting targets.

The proposals are likely to increase tensions between Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, and the police.

Smith was humiliated last week when the leader of the Police Federation, which represents, 140,000 rank-and-file officers, publicly mocked her student drug abuse and accused her of “betraying” the police in a row over pay.

In a move that will be seen as a further attempt to increase government control, the paper is expected to recommend that Sir Ronnie Flanagan, who oversees all forces as chief inspector of constabulary, is replaced at the end of his contract by a civilian official.

One official who has seen the plans said: “The big item here is an increase in Home Office control for making senior police appointments.”

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said yesterday: “This reflects the Stalinist reflexes of Gordon Brown’s Labour party. Yet again this government seems unable to resist the urge for centralisation.”

Lord Harris, a member of the Metropolitan police authority, said the idea had been first proposed by David Blunkett, the former home secretary. But he said the plan had been shelved after criticism that it was “centralisation and interference”.

Harris said the plans might help ensure the best candidates were given jobs in the biggest forces. “There has been a problem. Whether this is the answer is another question,” he said.

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