THE 'police precept' that slaps up to £193 on council tax bills will be axed amid fury over its soaring cost, under government plans.

The Home Office has drawn up proposals for a new 'community safety levy' that can only be spent on neighbourhood policing - bringing down its cost.

Furthermore, residents will be able to vote off directly-elected members of the new police boards that will charge the levy if they think bills are too high.

And those police boards will have to prove that every penny of their budgets is needed for better neighbourhood policing, perhaps on leaflets delivered to every door.

The plans to open up the precept to proper public scrutiny follow mounting anger that existing police authorities have hiked bills with no explanation.

Since 1997, the precept for Band D council taxpayers in Cleveland has leapt by 217 per cent (from £54.87 to £173.87), with a 173 per cent rise in County Durham (from £52.20 to £142.47).

In North Yorkshire, the increase has been even more punishing (a 289 per cent rise, from £49.72 to £193.37), with only Northumbria residents (up 48 per cent, from £52.73 to £78.27) escaping.

No explanation of how the money will be spent appears on council tax bills and the only restriction on budgets is the possible threat of government 'capping'.

Residents also have little opportunity to protest if the money is squandered, because police authorities are not directly elected. Their members are 'co-opted' from councils and other public bodies.

Now a draft of the Policing and Crime Reduction Bill, leaked to a national newspaper, has put forward the new, scaled-back, 'community safety levy'.

The Home Office declined to comment on the leak, but the Conservatives immediately warned the plans did not go far enough to protect local taxpayers.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "The council taxpayer in the past has been fleeced by the police precept.

"Conservatives would ensure that not only would directly elected police commissioners control the precept, but any increase beyond a certain level would have to be subject to local referendum."

Nationwide, the police precept raises £2.5billion - up by around £1.5billion since 1997 - but only about £800million goes on recruiting more officers.

The change would mean even more of police budgets would come straight from Whitehall, courtesy of the income and business taxes paid to the Treasury.

The inexorable growth in the police precept is also illustrated by the big increase in the proportion of each force's budget which it funds.

That share leapt betwen 1997-98 and 2007-08 in Cleveland (from 11.4 per cent to 22.1 per cent), Durham (from 12.1 per cent to 22.4 per cent) and North Yorkshire (from 18.1 per cent to 42.4 per cent).