The panel, which consists of councillors from the four district councils – Barnsley, Rotherham, Doncaster and Sheffield – plus two independent members, met last Friday in the fine, panelled council chamber of Barnsley Town Hall to consider the draft Police and Crime Plan I am proposing for the coming year.

The plan sets out the priorities for the police.

I arrive at these after considering what a number of people tell me: the police locally and nationally, the leaders of the district councils, those I meet at community meetings and the public. I then bring the plan to the panel.

They made some further helpful suggestions, which we will now incorporate into it.

To take just one example, the Green Party councillor asked if, as well as saying that we want to make South Yorkshire safe for all who ‘live, learn and work’ here, we could add ‘travel’ as well, especially as the new plan says a lot more about road safety.

We want our county to be a place where it is safe to live, learn, work and travel.

At the same time we discussed the budget for the coming financial year and the precept (council tax) that supports it, because without the finances, the plan fails. At one point I was asked by a Rotherham councillor about the work of the protecting vulnerable people officers (PVP) in safeguarding children who are sexually exploited.

As you would expect, this has a very high priority in the plan and we discussed how PVP will be strengthened in the coming year.

Based on the Chief Constable’s assessment of need, the budget proposes an increase in investigations and PVP officers in all districts, including Rotherham – 16 posts in Rotherham, 12 in Barnsley, 25 in Doncaster and 23 in Sheffield. These are significant numbers.

You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when the Rotherham councillor voted against the proposals for the budget and precept – in other words, against strengthening the work of safeguarding children – and proposed no alternatives or amendments.

When councillors tell me they want certain improvements but don’t follow that through by supporting the necessary funding, this looks like willing the ends but not the means.

But as my grandmother used to put it, ‘You can’t have the penny and the bun’.

The police know, as we know, that they can only do their job effectively if they have the trust and confidence of the public. Nothing damages that trust more quickly than bad behaviour on their part.

Once again last week we had a number of instances of that, but perhaps none more shocking than what was revealed in a report by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) into the behaviour of some officers at Charing Cross police station in London. The IOPC found that between 2016 and 2018 officers were routinely passing offensive racist, misogynist and homophobic emails and WhatsApp messages between themselves, something that had been discovered by chance.

The behaviour was so egregious that the IOPC took the unusual step of publishing what they found in full. One example will do.

One male officer wrote to a female officer: ‘I would happily rape you … if I was single I would happily chloroform you.’ One police constable who had been disciplined was subsequently promoted to sergeant.

Most disturbing of all was the IOPC conclusion: “We believe these incidents are not isolated or simply the behaviour of a few ‘bad apples’.” In this part of the Met there was a deeply offensive culture.

As far as South Yorkshire goes I am reassured by two things.

First, when Her Majesty’s Inspectors rated SYP as ‘good’ overall a couple of years ago, they also commended its ethical leadership as ‘outstanding’. Of course, that has to be maintained.

And second, our Chief Constable is also the National Police Chief’s Council lead for anti-corruption and will be well aware, therefore, of how things can go wrong and what the tell-tale signs might be.

Nevertheless, when I speak to the Chief Constable about these matters, I look for reassurance on two counts.

First, that if any such behaviour is found in South Yorkshire, guilty officers are swiftly dealt with.

But also – and this might be harder to achieve, but more critical – I want the police to think about how we stop people with racist, homophobic or misogynist attitudes like this becoming police officers in the first place.

We may have to show some the door, but we also need to guard the entrance.

Stay safe and well.

This is a shortened version of the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner’s blog.

South Yorkshire Police plan for officer increase fails without tax rise - Dr Alan Billings