Scotland Yard is spending £15,000 on ethnically diverse police mascots after complaints that PCSO Steve, its current rubber representative, is too white, too male, and too blond.

Three new mascots – to be known as “Police Pals” – will make up, with Steve, Britain’s first foam-headed Safer Neighbourhood team. A new police community support officer called Sunita will be joined by two police constables, one male and one female, who will appear at schools across London from next year.

The initiative follows the creation of a working group within the force’s Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate to tackle “race and gender” issues within the Met’s mascot division.

Details were revealed yesterday in written answers from Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, to the London Assembly. Sir Ian disclosed that £600 was being spent on designing the mascots and £14,400 had been set aside to provide four uniforms for each team member. Helmets for their enormous foam heads will prove particularly expensive.

The Met’s mascot deployment may have implications for other public services where puppet-like figures with outsized heads play a prominent public relations role. Postman Pat and Fireman Sam could both find themselves rendered unrepresentative and out of date. But construction industry insiders said that Bob the Builder would survive unscathed.

PCSO Steve was developed in Cheam, southwest London, and was modelled on an actual member of the local Safer Neighbourhood team.

Complaints about him first appeared in The Job, the Met’s monthly magazine, in September when a Sergeant Wright wrote about using the mascot at a community event.

“An Asian member of our team agreed to be Steve,” the sergeant said. “He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and because the character would not have dark-skinned arms it became apparent that the officer would not be able to perform the role. Female team members also felt isolated.” The Met responded by saying that it was addressing the race and gender issues around mascots, prompting Richard Barnes, a Conservative member of the London Assembly, to table a series of questions to Sir Ian.

After receiving the answers, Mr Barnes told The Times yesterday: “Are they serious? There are so many issues that are of greater importance than the gender of a giant foam doll.” PC Geoff Parker, an officer stationed in Islington, was equally disappointed. In a letter to The Job, he said: “One of the things that is damaging our job and our relations with the community is this constant overbearing political correctness.”

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