Police tsars ‘could lack mandate’

The Government has already come under fire for refusing to fund a mailshot for Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) candidates, a decision branded “scandalous” by Lord Prescott who is campaigning in Humberside, and instead opted for a multi-million pound advertising campaign which launched this 
week.

Many candidates have rounded on the broadcasts, however, which feature a series of violent street attacks and robberies, saying they demonise young people and are too little, too late.

Now with the election just weeks away, it is being claimed the controversial policy – billed as the biggest revolution to policing in decades – could come to represent a waste of tens of millions of pounds.

Lincolnshire Independent candidate Meryvn Barrett, who was awarded an OBE in 1999 
for services to crime reduction, said: “Rather than it being the revolutionary policy that the Government was looking for, what we are going to have is more or less the same as before.

“The failure to provide a mailshot, combined with putting on elections in November, means that turn-out is going to be low –probably around 15 per cent or even lower than that.

“That creates a problem in 
itself.

“Whoever is elected on November 15 is not going to have the mandate that they really require, in particular to deal with the police and crime panels.

“The worry is there is going to be a limit on what PCCs can ultimately do and achieve.

“To some extent the PCCs are simply going to represent continuity rather than change – to some extent it is going to be police authorities mark two.”

Mr Barrett also told the Yorkshire Post the new Home Office adverts were “absolutely awful” and “will intimidate large numbers of vulnerable people”.

Gillian Radcliffe, who recently pulled out as the only independent candidate for the South Yorkshire PCC election owing to a lack of funds, said: “I think there is a significant likelihood we’ll end up with a lot of the same people doing broadly the same role – writing a policing plan setting out local priorities and deciding how much council tax precept to apply for policing services.

“If those people couldn’t deliver more effective policing as police authority members, are we really to expect them to do it as a crime commissioner or member of a crime panel?

“One of the selling points for implementing this radical and expensive change was to get people with significant skills who would become the voice for local people.

“Looking at the likely winners of the PCC elections and the selections of members for the panels, I get no sense of any new blood or broader expertise than we’ve had before. Being consultative and accountable is a mind-set, not just part of a job description, and individual track records are likely to indicate future behaviour.”

Last month, candidates including Labour, independents – a former Tory councillor– and former Liberal Democrat London mayoral candidate Brian Paddick signed an open letter warning turnout could be tiny because of a lack of public awareness and promotion by the Government.

Meanwhile, Peter Neyroud, the former chief of the National Policing Improvement Agency who has been working with the Labour candidates in the lead up to the PCC elections, yesterday added to criticism of the organisation of the policy.

The former chief constable of Thames Valley Police said voters needed more information and expressed concern over the timing of the poll.

There will be 41 police and crime commissioners elected throughout England and Wales on November 15.

The first term served will be from November 2012 to May 2016 and candidates have until October 19 to put their names forward.

The Home Office defended its decision not to carry out a mailshot for candidates earlier this year, saying it would have cost more than £30m.

Government Ministers say the new commissioners will give the public a greater say in policing and that they will be able to effectively hold chief constables to account while standing up for victims and helping to cut crime across the country.