Ditch overpaid, paper-shuffling police busybodies
THE first duty of any government should be the protection of the public. But the Tories, once renowned as the party of law and order, have failed in that central mission, Since coming to power in 2010, they have presided over a continued loss of faith in the criminal justice system, amid cuts to the police, mismanagement by officialdom, leniency from the courts and priorities warped by fashionable ideology.
This pattern is epitomised by the impact of one of their flagship measures, which was meant to galvanise our police forces but instead has fuelled despair. It is 10 years since the Conservative-led Coalition created the network of elected 41 Police and Crime Commissioners to replace the former, largely municipal, police authorities. Pushed through by then home secretary Theresa May, these new posts were meant to improve the accountability of local constabularies and thereby make them more responsive.
But they have never lived up to expectations, becoming another element in May’s long catalogue of ill-judged initiatives, including her virtuesignalling but counter-productive prohibition on stop-and-search. Police and Crime Commissioners have turned out to be an expensive bureaucratic gimmick, designed to give the illusion of action while swallowing ever greater sums of taxpayers’ money on job creation schemes for paper shufflers and keyboard warriors.
WITH salaries ranging from £66,300 to £100,000, the commissioners might enjoy high earnings but they have low visibility and little credibility. The overwhelming majority of the public would struggle to give the name of their local officeholder. Nor is there any democratic enthusiasm for the role. In 2012, fewer than 15 per cent of voters turned out. The figure has risen since then, due to the decision to hold the police ballots alongside other, more popular votes.
On the rare occasions that any commissioner makes the headlines, it is usually because of an act of folly, which again exposes the inadequate calibre of most of these overpaid incumbents. Only this week, it was reported that Caroline Henry, Nottinghamshire’s commissioner, had pleaded guilty to speeding five times in just four months last year, included travelling at 40mph in a 30mph zone. Admitting that she felt “embarrassed and ashamed”, the Conservative politician now awaits sentencing in July, but it is impossible to see how she can remain in her position.
Her case is hardly unique. Last October, Philip Allott was forced to resign as the £74,000 North Yorkshire commissioner after he lost the confidence of his staff, following claims that he had made “sexist and misogynistic comments” including, in the wake of Sarah Everard’s shocking murder, that women should be “more streetwise”. More defiant is the Cleveland commissioner, Steve Turner, who rejected calls to resign last November when an investigation was launched into an allegation against him of sexual assault in the 1980s, a claim he has said is motivated by “political gain”.
The commissioners’ offices seem more interested in empirebuilding than meeting public needs. It has been estimated that many cost four times as much as the police authorities they replaced, which is little wonder when their bloated staffing structures are examined. At Hampshire, for instance, the commissioner cannot manage without a sprawling hierarchy that includes a £92,000-a-year chief executive, a deputy chief executive, a head of performance, a head of commissioning, a modern slavery partnership county co-ordinator, a head of communications, plus a communications manager, three senior communications officers, three business support officers, two cyber ambassador coordinators and a youth engagement officer.
BUT all the action plans, diversity training programmes and consultations do nothing to tackle crime, which should be the primary task of the commissioners. The more that these placeholders spout their jargon and indulge in analysis paralysis, the more offences go unpunished.
Yesterday, figures revealed the police were failing to solve around 500 burglaries every day. In the same vein, 140,000 car and bike thefts went unresolved last year. Shoplifting and soft drug possession have been effectively decriminalised, while the vast majority of rapes are unpunished. In fact, just six per cent of all crimes in the year to September 2021 resulted in a charge, a figure that should cause shame to those who run our justice system.
In 2014, Nick Clegg, then deputy prime minister, said the commissioners were “a discredited experiment”. The experience of failure has only reinforced the truth of that judgement.
‘Police and Crime Commissioners have turned out to be an expensive gimmick’