There aren't enough hours in the day to do my job, says Yorkshire crime tsar as she appoints £50k-a-year deputy

Julia Mulligan will become one of two PCCs in Yorkshire with a deputy, alongside Mark Burns-Williamson of West Yorkshire, who was criticised for only approaching Labour party colleagues to fill the post in 2013.

Mrs Mulligan, who was elected in 2012 and re-elected in May this year, said she had decided to appoint a deputy because the remit of police and crime commissioners has expanded since the role was introduced.

A spokeswoman added: “Julia is extremely committed to public engagement, and there just aren’t enough hours in the day for her to do everything she wants to do in that regard. The new deputy will support her on this aspect of her work.”

But the move was criticised by the local Police Federation, who said the timing of the announcement was “very unfortunate” given how stretched the county’s police force was and the current demand on its officers.

Both South Yorkshire and Humberside have previously had deputy PCCs, whose role is to support the work of the crime commissioner but is not politically restricted. In both cases, the role was discontinued when a new PCC was elected.

According to the advert on the North Yorkshire PCC’s website, the deputy job, which comes with a salary of between £45,000 and £50,000, is “an exciting opportunity for someone who wishes to influence the delivery and direction of policing services in North Yorkshire”.

The successful candidate will be “politically aware and astute, and be able to provide strategic insight and advice on a wide range of topics”.

They are also expected to have knowledge of community safety issues such as vulnerability, sexual abuse and reducing re-offending.

PCCs were introduced by the coalition government in 2012 in a bid to make police forces more accountable to the local electorate.

The commissioners are voted in every four years and oversee the work of the local police force, with the power to set budgets, hire and fire chief constables and set local policing priorities.

The commissioner and deputy commissioner are the only positions in the office that are “politically unrestricted”. All other staff are barred from political actions.

A spokeswoman for Mrs Mulligan said she was not looking for her deputy to have “any particular political persuasion”. She added that rather than simply appointing someone, she had publicly advertised the post and would hold interviews.

She said: “Essentially, lots of other PCCs have a deputy, and Julia has been weighing up the pros and cons of appointing her own deputy position for a while, but keeping an open mind on whether it was right for North Yorkshire.

“However now she is at the start of her second term of office, it is a natural point for her to take a look at the staffing of her office. Having done that, she’s decided to go ahead with the post.”

Mike Stubbs, chairman of the North Yorkshire Police Federation said, ‘It was refreshing that, up until now, our PCC had chosen to operate without a deputy. It is not clear why that situation has changed.”

“The appointments of Deputy PCCs in other parts the country have caused considerable controversy. To date, North Yorkshire has been spared the damaging perceptions of cronyism and ‘jobs for the boys’ that have arisen elsewhere.’

“Events in the last few days, with four tragic fatalities in three days in road traffic collisions around the county, together with a number of incidents of violence in the last week, have shone a spotlight on the demands that our officers are facing.

“The uncertainty nationally over police funding last year resulted in very little recruiting taking place, and we remain well below the target of 1,400 officers, which the PCC is aiming to achieve.

“Together with increasing demand in areas such as sexual offences and vulnerability, this is placing a very real strain on front line resources, and that strain is being felt right now. “The timing of this announcement is therefore very unfortunate, and will undoubtedly strike the wrong note with police officers across the county.”

Professor Gary Craig, a member of North Yorkshire’s police and crime panel, said: “There has been some concern about the number of staff being appointed but also about the fact that several senior officers in her office now share their time between North Yorkshire and other forces such as Cleveland, suggesting a lack of demand for their work (as did also the secondment of the Chief Constable to South Yorkshire recently for some months).

“This makes the need for a deputy questionable at the least and it also fits with the fact that Julia seems to spend a lot of time away from North Yorkshire involved in national initiatives.

“It may be good for her profile politically but doesn’t do much for the people of North Yorkshire.

“This announcement has not, as far as I am aware, been shared with or consulted with members of the police and crime panel but that is not untypical, we seem to be the last to hear about such announcements even though we are supposed to be the body holding her to account.”

Carl Les, chairman of the police and crime panel, said the fact that Mrs Mulligan had avoided accusations of cronyism by publicly advertising the role, rather than simply choosing someone.

He said: “In a way I am not surprised she feels the need for a deputy. In the days of the former police authority we had 17 councillors spread across the area. I always thought it was a big ask for one councillor to cover that amount of territory.”

Mr Burns-Williamson, a Labour politician, faced accusations of cronyism in 2013 when he announced the appointment as his deputy of Isabel Owen, a former Labour Parliamentary candidate and wife of the party’s regional director for Yorkshire.

Opposition councillors described the appointment as “deeply flawed” and criticised the fact that only Labour supporters had been approached about the role.

According to the West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner’s website, Ms Owen was paid a salary of £57,355 last year.

The previous Humberside commissioner Matthew Grove was accused of “political cronyism” in 2013 after unveiling a fellow Conservative councillor, Paul Robinson, as his new deputy.

His successor Keith Hunter, who was elected in May after defeating Mr Grove in an election, says he has no plans for someone to take the £50,000-a-year position.

“I have been up front from the start and have no plans to have anyone as a deputy,” he told the Hull Daily Mail. “It may be that, once I get in the office, I might find a skills gap that needs filling, but at the moment I have no plans for a deputy.

“If I do hire someone, it will be someone who has the skills I need, not a personal friend.”

In 2014, South Yorkshire’s deputy PCC Tracey Cheetham resigned from her role, saying she could no longer work for then-PCC Shaun Wright.

Mr Wright later resigned himself in the aftermath of the bombshell Alexis Jay report into child sex abuse in Rotherham, where he had previously served as a senior councillor.

Earlier this summer, current PCC Dr Alan Billings announced that he was appointing an assistant commissioner to “take a strategic lead on specific areas seen...as being critical to the delivery of his Police and Crime Plan objectives”. This role will be politically restricted and only 26 hours a week.

Earlier this year, Mrs Mulligan revealed that Fraser Sampson, the chief executive of West Yorkshire PCC Mark Burns-Williamson’s office, would be appointed as acting chief executive of her office while the current holder of the role is absent on medical grounds.

Mr Sampson will be paid £112,500 a year by North Yorkshire’s PCC during the secondment, representing 90 per cent of his annual pay package, will West Yorkshire will pay the remaining 10 per cent for the regional and national work he continues to do.