The Conservatives have drawn up radical plans to create a special police reserve force similar to the Territorial Army.

The new force would comprise tens of thousands of paid special constables, all highly-trained with full powers of arrest.

Its creation would lead eventually to the scrapping of police community support officers, or PCSOs, who have attracted widespread criticism for being toothless and dubbed "Blunkett's bobbies''.

The Tory plan, drawn up by David Ruffley , the shadow police reform minister, also proposes recruiting thousands of professional information technology and telecommunications experts to help in the fight against terrorism.

Police reservists would be paid a tax-free, quarterly bonus or "bounty'' on completion of a set number of hours per month, and possibly even be given a rebate on their council tax as a reward for their service. Individual chief constables could also choose to pay Christmas bonuses.

The plan is designed to resurrect special constables as the main support to the police, boosting their numbers from t 14,000 to nearer 30,000. Numbers of specials, who are unpaid, have been declining since PCSOs were launched by David Blunkett in 1998 when he was home secretary.

Thousands of would-be specials now sign up as PCSOs instead because of the generous financial package.

PCSOs do not have powers of arrest and receive only limited training. Critics have denounced them as "plastic plods'' with little more than the ability to direct traffic and issue fixed-penalty notices. A senior member of the Police Federation last month called for them to be scrapped after two PCSOs failed to help rescue a drowning boy from a pond because they were "not trained'' to deal with the incident.

The Tory scheme would not immediately scrap PCSOs, but would make volunteering for the new reserve force more attractive with advanced training, some pay, and the opportunity to do real police work.

Reservists would be required to work a minimum number of hours each month and form part of neighbourhood policing teams. But, unlike PCSOs, they would be able to make arrests and intervene in violent or dangerous situations.

In the event of a terrorist attack, the report says, "they could actually aid officers in frontline rescue and recovery duties in a way that PCSOs are less equipped to perform''.

The report also proposes using reservists in counter-terrorist investigations. It states: "In cases of suspected terrorism, the analysis of forensic evidence (e.g. of calls made from mobiles and emails from computers) is very time-consuming. We believe that more civilians with a telecoms or IT background could, if properly deployed, be an added asset in terrorist investigations.''

The Tories say they have held private discussions with senior executives of six major IT and telecoms companies about whether their staff would be interested. Although the proposal is bound to meet with resistance from police chiefs on security grounds, the Tories point out that many IT workers are already security-cleared as they work as government consultants.

The scheme would ensure that employees had statutory rights to be called out in an emergency without risking their jobs, in the way that retained firefighters and the TA are protected.

Whereas Special Constables are unpaid, the reservists would be paid a "remuneration via a bounty''. The report points to an experiment in Durham, where specials were paid a pounds 1,500 tax-free bonus on completing a year of service, which boosted recruitment.

Mr Ruffley said: "We propose a 21st-century upgrade for the much-valued Special Constabulary. We believe that we must tap into a new pool of volunteers who want to show their social responsibility.''

The scheme is backed by the shadow home secretary David Davis and is part of Tory efforts to bolster social responsibility.