Police Crime Commissioner

[said]

I don't know about other readers, but I have always felt that the position of a Police Crime Commissioner is unnecessary and a complete waste of money. It is not just one person involved in the job - but a complete department of personnel to support the position has to be paid for in addition.
There has been published numerous abuses associated with some of the people employed for the job, which was once undertaken by lay members of the public at far lower costs.
The local Police Crime Commissioner has just published the name of a person to become her deputy, Emily Spurrell - a Liverpool City Councillor. I am given to understand that people in the civil service, or associated, or who live in the area where they are to stand are ineligible for such a position. This surely would be a conflict of interest?

[justbecause]

I don't know about other readers, but I have always felt that the position of a Police Crime Commissioner is unnecessary and a complete waste of money. It is not just one person involved in the job - but a complete department of personnel to support the position has to be paid for in addition.
There has been published numerous abuses associated with some of the people employed for the job, which was once undertaken by lay members of the public at far lower costs.
The local Police Crime Commissioner has just published the name of a person to become her deputy, Emily Spurrell - a Liverpool City Councillor. I am given to understand that people in the civil service, or associated, or who live in the area where they are to stand are ineligible for such a position. This surely would be a conflict of interest?

And in the case of Jane Kennedy, many of them are members of her own family.

[Little Londoner]

As was always the case The Chief Constable should run the Police and a Chief Fire Officer run the Fire Brigade not some pseudo politician who knows zero of either.

[silver fox]

I don't know about other readers, but I have always felt that the position of a Police Crime Commissioner is unnecessary and a complete waste of money. It is not just one person involved in the job - but a complete department of personnel to support the position has to be paid for in addition.
There has been published numerous abuses associated with some of the people employed for the job, which was once undertaken by lay members of the public at far lower costs.
The local Police Crime Commissioner has just published the name of a person to become her deputy, Emily Spurrell - a Liverpool City Councillor. I am given to understand that people in the civil service, or associated, or who live in the area where they are to stand are ineligible for such a position. This surely would be a conflict of interest?

For once I agree with you, now I wonder who had this "bright" idea for adding another layer of unwanted bureaucracy to local government systems.

[grandsounder]

I've always believed it's important in a democracy to get out and vote, and have always done so, whether it be for Parliamentary, European, or Council elections. But I refuse point blank to vote for a Police Commissioner and legitimise these totally unnecessary self-aggrandising wastes of space. The consistently record low turnout for these elections show that most people agree.

[silver fox]

I've always believed it's important in a democracy to get out and vote, and have always done so, whether it be for Parliamentary, European, or Council elections. But I refuse point blank to vote for a Police Commissioner and legitimise these totally unnecessary self-aggrandising wastes of space. The consistently record low turnout for these elections show that most people agree.

The words low turnout doesn't do justice to the actual, at the time of the first Commissioner vote I was manning a polling station, we had 6 voters over the full day, a ring around other polling stations showed that we in fact were far from the lowest numbers, very few polling station achieved double figures, some even spent the full day without seeing a single voter, things may be better now, but I kind of doubt it.

[ainsdale local]

The words low turnout doesn't do justice to the actual, at the time of the first Commissioner vote I was manning a polling station, we had 6 voters over the full day, a ring around other polling stations showed that we in fact were far from the lowest numbers, very few polling station achieved double figures, some even spent the full day without seeing a single voter, things may be better now, but I kind of doubt it.

I went to vote. Just to ruin my voting paper by scribling "none of the above - waste of money " on it as a form of protest.

[grassroots]

I don't know about other readers, but I have always felt that the position of a Police Crime Commissioner is unnecessary and a complete waste of money. It is not just one person involved in the job - but a complete department of personnel to support the position has to be paid for in addition.
There has been published numerous abuses associated with some of the people employed for the job, which was once undertaken by lay members of the public at far lower costs.
The local Police Crime Commissioner has just published the name of a person to become her deputy, Emily Spurrell - a Liverpool City Councillor. I am given to understand that people in the civil service, or associated, or who live in the area where they are to stand are ineligible for such a position. This surely would be a conflict of interest?

Totally agree complete and utter waste of tax payers money . Maybe if they do away with this office the money could be better spent on a children's play ground in the Kew area .. SBC TAKE NOTE .

[silver fox]

Totally agree complete and utter waste of tax payers money . Maybe if they do away with this office the money could be better spent on a children's play ground in the Kew area .. SBC TAKE NOTE .

The Police Commissioner farce is Government driven rather than Council, I have no doubt that many councils could find a much better use of the wasted money.

This jobs for the "boys" position came courtesy of the Tory/Lib-Dem coalition, just another post that sounds good, but looks utterly pointless.

[said]

The words low turnout doesn't do justice to the actual, at the time of the first Commissioner vote I was manning a polling station, we had 6 voters over the full day, a ring around other polling stations showed that we in fact were far from the lowest numbers, very few polling station achieved double figures, some even spent the full day without seeing a single voter, things may be better now, but I kind of doubt it.

I bet it was similar to the regional Mayor farce too! How would it be if the general public voted in an Executive Panel from among themselves to oversee the so called work of these pretended officials? Or we could vote in a lay person to become Chief Executive Commissioner of the Police Crime Commissioner? Or even a lay person to become a Chief Executive Commissioner for the Fire Service? In fact we could make up positions for the whole of the general public and apply to the Government for the positions to be salaried as we would be working on behalf of the people. That is what the Government is doing is making up these positions.

[amiidoodle]

Politics aside (a tad) I'm no fan when she commented on an IRA commemorative demonstration in Liverpool stating "I see no problem - the songs are quite catchy".

Ill informed halfwit.

[Alikado]

As was always the case The Chief Constable should run the Police and a Chief Fire Officer run the Fire Brigade not some pseudo politician who knows zero of either.

It was never the case, years ago it was the 'Watch Committee' and since then it was a board of nominated Councillors with some token lay members.

The Governments of recent years have been trying to turn everything into a copy of the American system.

[dav]

The Governments of recent years have been trying to turn everything into a copy of the American system.

I wish they'd copy the First and Second Amendments.