Cost of PCC and his pledges questionable

THE value of the Police and Crime Commissioner and his “office” at £1.5 million per annum is questionable to say the least.

The claim is that the police force would lose all sense of direction without his expert guidance and that it is only his masterplan that avoids the chaos that would result.

Not only is this quite an insult to the force’s own management team, the reality is that the chief constable is perfectly able to undertake these tasks himself.

I was never sure what the “prob

lem” was that brought this role into being, but was sure that adding an expensive bureaucracy with an impressive sounding but ineffectual remit would not solve it.

If you imagine that the office has any teeth, just note that it will not get involved with police operations, which is the only area where most of us have contact with them.

As regards the rest of the 2022-23 campaign leaflet circulated with council tax bills, under the banner of “Delivering on my promises”, we find that the pre-election promise of more police in total has been changed to more “visible” police – just shuffling the pack again.

Frankly, as long as they are doing their job well, I don’t care if I see them or not.

Visibility is not a synonym for efficiency. However, we are told “thousands” of residents have endorsed the plan, which from a population of around a million, hardly provides a mandate.

Besides heaping praise upon itself, there is a lot of clichéd “targeting”, “hunting down”, “deploying” etc, but not one solitary promise that is measurable so that success/failure can be judged objectively.

Also, there is a natty chart intended to impress us with the work the police get through every day, but with no context is completely meaningless - frankly 37 arrests in a population of over onemillion, sounds quite modest.

Interestingly, there are no last year cost comparisons either, which neatly skips over the pre-election promise to drastically cut the PCC’s own office running costs. In fact, exactly the reverse – the PPC’s budget has been increased by over 11 per cent.

The office is Tory-led, so none of this should come as a surprise.

R Baker