What a waste of public money

BobQ

Well obviously we can all nominate candidates for this but mine is the role of Police Commissioner.

I follow current affairs more than the average person yet I find it amazing that as we approach the day when we all get to elect someone to be police commissioner there has been hardly any news coverage of what the role is and why we need it.

The winners of these elections will receive a salary of between £65K and £100K of our Council Tax. So thats £3m on salaries alone, let alone the admin support they will no doubt be provided with. The candidates seem to the usual party nominees and a few independents who have managed to scrape together the names of a small number of electors to support their nominations. They include people that have supposedly retired from politics like Michael Mates and John Prescott. Just seems like another load of Quangos to me.

Does anyone think they will serve a useful purpose? Or that the punlic funding of the role is justified?

wymondham

we have voting cards, but apart from that i know NOTHING about it. No news, no candidates (assume there are some?)..... for £65 to £100k i'd like to get nominated since its a low publicity post it sounds ideal!

vivatifosi

wymondham wrote: »

we have voting cards, but apart from that i know NOTHING about it. No news, no candidates (assume there are some?)..... for £65 to £100k i'd like to get nominated since its a low publicity post it sounds ideal!

Exactly the same here. I know nothing about who is standing or what their policies are.

Someone I know is working on this (different area so can't ask who's standing) and they are expecting an exceptionally low turnout.

antrobus

BobQ wrote: »

...Does anyone think they will serve a useful purpose? Or that the public funding of the role is justified?

The elected police commissioner replaces the existing police authority. So;

- the commissioner will perform the same functions as exercised by the authority, which might or might not be useful and worthy of public funding

- the cost of the commissioner's salary might possibly be more than the aggregate cost of paying allowances and expenses to the existing members of the authority. Or it might be less; you'd have to do the math.

- presumably the exisiting police authority already has the necessary "admin support" and so there'll be no change there.

kabayiri

I find the adverts on this new Police Commissioner recruitment galling.

They suggest that recruiting this person will seriously affect things like street crime in your area.

There is no evidence the changes will have any effect here at all. Yet another glossy set of ads paid for by government. Just spin.

MacMickster

Politicising the police service is the last thing that we should be doing.

I hope that the turnout will be so low that these positions die a natural death after one term.

antrobus

vivatifosi wrote: »

Exactly the same here. I know nothing about who is standing or what their policies are.

Someone I know is working on this (different area so can't ask who's standing) and they are expecting an exceptionally low turnout.

Sadly, and for some reason, there isn't the same requirement for information about PCC candidates to be sent to every voter as there is for mayoral candidates. (If your LA has happened to opt for a mayor that is.) Although there is a website - choosemypcc.org.uk and they have been running TV ads promoting it.

Murtle

Find your candidates here

http://www.policeelections.com/

I am startled to see the quality of our options if the salary is at that level...if I'd known in advance I might have stood.

3 out of our 6 don't actually tell us what they stand for.

MacMickster

Murtle wrote: »

3 out of our 6 don't actually tell us what they stand for.

They stand for the gravy train.

morag1202

vivatifosi wrote: »

Exactly the same here. I know nothing about who is standing or what their policies are.

Someone I know is working on this (different area so can't ask who's standing) and they are expecting an exceptionally low turnout.

This site seems to give full candidate info.

http://www.choosemypcc.org.uk/

vivatifosi

morag1202 wrote: »

This site seems to give full candidate info.

http://www.choosemypcc.org.uk/

Thanks, I've had a read now and have two that I'll try and find out more about. It's disappointing though that they are all current councillors with no crime and policing specialists.