Donate SIGN UP

Elected Police Commissioners

Avatar Image
Gromit | 13:23 Fri 16th Nov 2012 | News
19 Answers
It seems less than 15% voted for them. It has been a huge waste of money.

Would you support scrapping them in future?
Gravatar

Answers

1 to 19 of 19rss feed

Best Answer

No best answer has yet been selected by Gromit. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.

For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.
Some of them will be responsible for setting huge budgets, but have no budgeting experience.

This was definitely not a good idea, and needs a rapid rethink.
Absolutely.

It has been a bedrock of Tory policy for decades that people have a 'choice' wherther that be for their child's school, their GP, surgeon, and now, Police Commissioner.

What they have a vested interest in refusing to see is that a 'choice' is only remotely valid if a) people are actually interested in making a choice, and b) if that choice is appropriately informed.

In most cases, the criteria are not met on either of these to provisos, and this is another example.

People don't really care who their Commisioner is, and they know nothing about the candidates that actually helps them to choose - such as who the candidates are in most cases, never mind what their intended policies will be.

The fact that John Prescott is even considered as being within shouting distance of one of these posts (don't know if he got it, God forbid!) but that shows this 'election' for the expensive farce it is.

The bureuacoracy this potentate is supposed to replace may not have been perfect, but a failed politico working alone is scarcely an improvement.
I heard this morning on television that at one polling station, not a single vote was cast.

I'm all in favour of cutting bureaucracy wherever it can be cut.
Probably. It was in Wales.
you can't cut bureauocracy here someone needs to oversee regional police forces.

However having that the responsibility of one person rather than a steering group doesn't seem a very good idea to me.

It puts too much power in the hands of someone who will be guaranteed to be a politician.

The old system of police authorities wasn't broken but they thought they should fix it anyway
Question Author
The low tirnout is because this power (to elect a Police Commissioner) was never asked for in the first place. No one has every campaigned for such powers. No one has championed the idea. There was no ground swell of public opinion clammering for it. The power to elect has been bestowed on us when we didn't really want it.

A 10-15% turnout does not make Policing more democratic or more accountable, probably the reverse.

It seems to be a cancer in the current Government. A poor idea, poorly implemented for zero return.
All I know was that I wasn’t allowed to park my car in the car park where I usually park this morning as it had been taken over for polling parking only. I had to park in other carpark miles away and it cost me twice as much as usual. Now that what I call criminal.
This was the first election I have boycotted. I believe this is another step towards politicising the police.
There hasn't been that much coverage of this nonsense in Scotland (as far as I know) apart from the general national news.

imo, I'd prefer a police commissioner to have come up through the ranks and have an idea what policing involves.
Hi,
how is it that some of the people interviewed on tv'd not heard anything about the election,would they be the 1st to complain when no cops about?
Question Author
Petal54

There will still be cops about whether their Commissioner is elected or not.
Since this seemed very much like the American "town sheriff" concept, I decided I'd vote only if John Wayne was one of the local candidates!
I didn't vote for the first time I can remember because I didn't like any of the candidates and I have met 2 of them personally. One of them in my area has failed to become an MP failed even to become a Councillor so is having a go at this.The last thing we need is more politicians, I agree this is a total waste of time and money scrap it please!
andy # but a failed politico working alone is scarcely an improvement. #

Alone ? You are joking ? They will require a PA and secretaries, who in turn will need a manager . As a department the commissioner will need a deputy who will also need a secretary.
They will require offices , equipment and of course cars. and first class travel when using public transport. They will also be junketing around the world to see how it works in other countries.
In May 2011 the UK voted against the Alternative Vote(AV) system.

This election for Police Commissioners used the AV system only they called it preference vote system. However It had it a good point, If it had been first passed the post John Prescott would have won in Humberside. As he didn't get a 50% majority the first count the second preference votes were counted, and the Tory candidate won. Shame.

http://www.mirror.co....erside-police-1440218
You are right Dodger we voted to keep our first past the post system but the government seems to ignore us and use AV or SV or similar systems where ever possible. This latest election is an example . It was a new post so there was no reason to ignore our wishes. Here is a web site that shows many examples of where these unwanted systems are imposed on us.

http://www.parliament...oting/voting-systems/
No, not scrapping them because I do think an initiative to offer greater transparency and accountability of the police to the public at a local level was necessary.What this government signally failed to do was to handle the process. There should have been far more explanation of the current system of local police authorities - how many were on the committee, how they were elected, numbers of staff, powers and budgets - and most importantly, why this was not working, or why it could not simply be amended without the costs of an election and complete reorganisation.

I am very angry at the way this coalition have completely mismanaged the whole thing though. We now get representatives from the coalition desperately defending their inaction by blaming the electorate for not understanding, the time of year. when it was they who set the date. and the national media, for being to london-centric.

They have spent 100 million on this whole sorry saga, but could not be bothered to spend a few million pounds more to ensure the voters received reminders and flyers detailing the different candidates for the PCC.

They dismiss the low turnout by saying, effectively, nevermind, it will be better next time. Well of course it will, it could hardly be worse!

These PCCs will have large budgets and important and far reaching powers, and it should have been the government, for whom this was a flagship project, to do everything they possibly could to ensure that they had a popular mandate. Instead they sat on their hands and did nothing. Its criminal.

So now we have 40 odd individuals. largely party political candidates, of variable experience in law and order, control of large budgets, and representing the public,controlling budgets of public money worth 100s of millions of pounds. this government have tried to do democracy on the cheap and that is shameful.

In a mature democracy, one that advertises itself as the mother of all parliaments, it is a joke and a source of national embarassment that we have elected officials on turnouts of less than 20% - some places are recording turnouts as low as 10%.
I didn't even consider voting Tory because a party who made Kenneth Clarke Secretary of State for Justice can not be serious about cracking down on crime, and more importantly listening to the general public.

1 to 19 of 19rss feed

Do you know the answer?

Elected Police Commissioners

Answer Question >>