I think this is a stupid Idea

Originally Posted by Xaccers

http://www.conservatives.com/getfile.../1664&type=pdf

Tried this link but got an error message saying 'This Document Doesn't Exist'. Made me smile that though

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by andyl

Tried this link but got an error message saying 'This Document Doesn't Exist'. Made me smile that though

Works fine for everyone here... do you have acrobat reader installed?

Originally Posted by Xaccers

Works fine for everyone here... do you have acrobat reader installed?

Now then, I might be a technophobe but...........

Still not working for me. Maybe they're denying access to liberal types!

Originally Posted by andyl

Now then, I might be a technophobe but...........

Still not working for me. Maybe they're denying access to liberal types!

You are not missing anything.It's the usual scare tactics employed by the Tories in every election when they are in opposition.

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by Xaccers

The reason why this thread got sidetracked onto speed cameras is because its a hot topic and an example of the police abusing their powers to make money and catch the easiest criminals rather than the ones that are causing the most detriment to the community.

Can I just check something? From what I've read in the local paper the funds raised from speeding fines is ring fenced to go back into road safety work, if this is the case then what does this have to do with the police force making money? Chim can you confirm this either way if you're about?
__________________

Originally Posted by Xaccers

...not ordered, remember he can't force the police to do anything...

So whats the point in having him/her?
__________________

Originally Posted by Pierre

yet removing cameras from nice straight dual carriegeways.

Why? The limit's there for a reason (it's set by qualified people with experience in the field, it's not just a random figure plucked out of the air).

As Andyl said, if you don;t agree with it then lobby the appropriate person to get it reviewed. - Just as you would need to do with a commisioner!

As I've stated before, some people think it's a right to drive on our roads, it's NOT. It's a hard earned privilege which can be revoked anytime you break the law. Speeding is doing just that, as has been stated before, if you cant do the time........

As for a commissioner striking a balance, well I'm sorry but I just can't see it, not with the hysteria over speed cameras that's whipped up by the tabloids.
__________________

Originally Posted by Xaccers

With regards basically means unless it doesn't make operational sense, the cheif constable should take into account the PA (currently) or commissioner (proposed) policies.
So if the commisioner suggests the police should tackle the vandalism outside the local chip shop by a gang of kids, then the chief constable should then incorporate that into his plans for the police tackling crime.
If the commisioner says "I want the police to monitor paedophiles 24 hours a day" the chief will obviously not do that as it's frankly impractical.:

Yet that may be the reason the electorate chose that candidate, what happens then, the police go their own sweet way (quite rightly) and they are still not accountable! :confused again :
__________________

Originally Posted by Xaccers

YOU could be the commisioner

I could be and I'd make a really crap commissioner as I know absolutely nothing about policing, prety much like most of the other candidates wouldn't!

It's easy to spot where the trouble is in life but it's not so easy to come up with solutions.
__________________

Originally Posted by andyl

Maybe they're denying access to liberal types!

It's a conspiracy I tell you, they've taken all our details and fed them into the Conservative super-computer worked out who has liberal views and they're going to track them down and make you vote Tory!!!!

They'll be issuing ID cards next

Edit- attached the PDF for your perusal Andy - saying that is doesn't look like it's worth spending the time on it!

Does that mean I'm not a liberal if I can access it?

[Stuart]

This thread is an example of why I think one commissioner would be a bad idea. As I have stated countless times before, the kinds of people who seek to be elected into this kind of position would often say or do anything to keep themselves in that position. Which would mean that they would say they are going to sort out any problem that is currently being highlighted by the press at the time. For evidence of this, look at the fact that the political parties have started to take notice of people's concerns on immigration recently. I am pretty sure Labour have actually said in the past that there isn't a problem and we have tight enough immigration controls, now they are saying they will tighten them if they get into power.

Now, as I understand it, the current Police Authority system is designed to reduce the chances of the Authority getting fixated on one issue, and maybe not ignoring other issues, but certainly not devoting enough time or resources to them.

Now, Xaccers pointed out (in reply to me) that the Police Force would not have to follow the commissioner's guidelines. Now, dellwear has just asked the question I was going to. If the commissioner cannot force the police to do what he or she says, what is the point of the commissioner?

Sorry, but while I accept that the police need to be accountable to the public (to a certain extent), I do not believe a commissioner is the answer. As I understand it, the Police Authorities are already partially elected, so they are already accountable to the public. I believe that at best, a commissioner would be someone who has no actual power to do anything, but costs a lot of money. At worst, they would have policies that would interfere with the Police's ability to do their job (such as increasing paperwork).

I will admit, if it can be proved that having a commissioner will reduce crime, or at least increase the chances of criminals being captured and convicted (but obviously after the police proving they committed the crime), I am all for the idea. I am concerned that it seems that the Torys have come up with this idea and are promising to implement it without really investigating whether it will work.

Still, Micheal Howard has promised he will do this if put into power. Even assuming they do get into power, in my experience, the Tories don't have a good record for doing what they promise.

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by scastle

Now, Xaccers pointed out (in reply to me) that the Police Force would not have to follow the commissioner's guidelines. Now, dellwear has just asked the question I was going to. If the commissioner cannot force the police to do what he or she says, what is the point of the commissioner?

If there is no operational justification for it, the cheif constable would not have to impliment it. For example, if the commisioner said he wanted all paedophiles to be followed, the cheif constable would be within his rights to not include that in his annual operations plan.
However, if the commisioner said that the police should tackle the very real problem of kids on a certain estate causing criminal damage, then it would be the responsibility of the chief constable to impliment that within his operational plan. This is what happens now.

Originally Posted by scastle

Sorry, but while I accept that the police need to be accountable to the public (to a certain extent), I do not believe a commissioner is the answer. As I understand it, the Police Authorities are already partially elected, so they are already accountable to the public. I believe that at best, a commissioner would be someone who has no actual power to do anything, but costs a lot of money. At worst, they would have policies that would interfere with the Police's ability to do their job (such as increasing paperwork).

Councillors represent their political party and very few people realise what the PA does (as demonstrated by some participants in this thread), let alone that it actually exists!
The public also has no say in the selection of which councillors join the PA.
That is not accountability.
As for costs, rather than paying for 17 people in a PA, you've got just the one.
Unless the goverment makes tackling crime harder for the police, nothing the commisioner can do will increase the paperwork or interfere with the police's ability to tackle crime.
It is the home office that decides proceedure, like what forms need to be filled out in triplicate, not the commisioner.
Also, the tories have stated they will reduce paperwork.

Originally Posted by scastle

I will admit, if it can be proved that having a commissioner will reduce crime, or at least increase the chances of criminals being captured and convicted (but obviously after the police proving they committed the crime), I am all for the idea. I am concerned that it seems that the Torys have come up with this idea and are promising to implement it without really investigating whether it will work.

They've looked at other countries and seen the positive effect having an accountable commisioner has had.

Originally Posted by scastle

Still, Micheal Howard has promised he will do this if put into power. Even assuming they do get into power, in my experience, the Tories don't have a good record for doing what they promise.

Oh I don't know, they promised to take on the trade unions and stop the strikes that were crippling the country, seem to recall that happened.
The also promised to reduce crime and under Howard that actually happened.

Originally Posted by dellwear

Can I just check something? From what I've read in the local paper the funds raised from speeding fines is ring fenced to go back into road safety work, if this is the case then what does this have to do with the police force making money? Chim can you confirm this either way if you're about?

True, money gained by the police through speed cameras has to be used in road safety, however this includes conferences with banquets at 5 star hotels discussing road safety.
Now unless the police are able to use the money to install speed bumps or redesign roads, the only thing they can do for road safety is install more cameras, or have more patrol cars (hmm why haven't they done that?)
Of course, all these cameras aren't just raking in money for the police, they're raking in huge amounts of tax for the treasury, could this be one of the reasons why the goverment are so pro cameras when more effective safety devices are available but don't bring in any money?

[Chimaera]

Originally Posted by dellwear

Can I just check something? From what I've read in the local paper the funds raised from speeding fines is ring fenced to go back into road safety work, if this is the case then what does this have to do with the police force making money? Chim can you confirm this either way if you're about?

Well if it that's the case we should be awash with money - and that's certainly not the case! So I would be inclined to think it's for Police Road Safety funding. But in our Borough the dedicated Police Road Safety team has recently been disbanded due to........lack of funding. So goodness knows where the money is going to - it's not to the local authority road safety departments.

Originally Posted by Xaccers

True, money gained by the police through speed cameras has to be used in road safety, however this includes conferences with banquets at 5 star hotels discussing road safety.

Well the only road safety discussions I've been to with the Police are held in their offices - so far I've missed out on the 5 star bit! But next week after 7 years in the job, I'm going here.
New traffic safety schemes such as speed cushions and road design are the responsibility of the local authority engineering departments, not the police - although they are consulted (along with the bus companies, emergency services and local residents, businesses etc) about any changes that are being looked at.

[Paul K]

Originally Posted by dellwear

Can I just check something? From what I've read in the local paper the funds raised from speeding fines is ring fenced to go back into road safety work, if this is the case then what does this have to do with the police force making money? Chim can you confirm this either way if you're about?

Well I just found this about our local "Safety Camera (cos you know they aren't just speed cameras ) Partnership"
http://www.lscp.org.uk/faqs.asp

Are cameras installed to generate revenue?
No.

The success of the LSCP is NOT measured by the amount of revenue collected. Some of the revenue is claimed back by the LSCP to fund operational costs, publicity and road safety education. All of the remaining revenue is retained by the Treasury. We measure our success in terms of casualty reduction. Falling revenue means that motorists are slowing down and that we have achieved safety benefits.

So basically here a percentage of the fine gets recycled into local safety education, projects, publicity etc and the rest goes to the government. Now what percentage that is I don't know but since the local road safety unit can't seem to afford to keep it's staffing levels at the correct numbers or the road engineers do very necessary road improvements I'm assuming that the treasury gets about 2/3 of it.

Originally Posted by dellwear

Edit- attached the PDF for your perusal Andy - saying that is doesn't look like it's worth spending the time on it!

I wish you hadn't attached it. Awash with rhetoric designed to incite fear. Some categories of crime are rising and yes that does include some violent crimes - but overall crime rates are falling. The fear of crime greatly exceeds the risk of crime. This is why debates become so emotive and why this proposal is nonsense. The suggestion of more drug rehabilitation facilities is, nonetheless, a hugely sensible one. Taking it a step further the decriminalisation of drugs and their regulation, production and distribution by the State is seen by many - including a JP I spoke to on Friday - as being arguably the single most effective anti-crime initiative that could be implemented. That idea will howver be a non-starter because of the media inspired hysteria surrounding drugs which an elected commissioner would necessarily have to take into account in any election campaign. I don't want to start another off topic debate about decriminalisation but just use this example of the dangers of politically inspired policing

Oh I don't know, they promised to take on the trade unions and stop the strikes that were crippling the country, seem to recall that happened.
The also promised to reduce crime and under Howard that actually happened.

Yep that happened!Screwed what industry we still had but it happened.However the ORIGINAL promise of doing away with closed shops took them the whole of Maggie's reign to achieve.

However I think most people here have domonstrated why this idea by Michael Howard is a stupid one.

Some institutions need LESS politics than most.The police is one as are education and the NHS.I suppose though that Howard's idea on this occasion is a step up from all the unelected quangos that the Tories set up when they were in power.Lots of teams of unknown people making decisions on our daily lives that cannot be fired even by the government even if they are cr@p at it and are most certainly not chosen by the electorate.

However both systems have disadvantages but I suspect that with elected representatives the system would be a lot more unstable than at present.

Originally Posted by Xaccers

Councillors represent their political party and very few people realise what the PA does (as demonstrated by some participants in this thread), let alone that it actually exists!
The public also has no say in the selection of which councillors join the PA.
That is not accountability.
As for costs, rather than paying for 17 people in a PA, you've got just the one.
Unless the goverment makes tackling crime harder for the police, nothing the commisioner can do will increase the paperwork or interfere with the police's ability to tackle crime.
It is the home office that decides proceedure, like what forms need to be filled out in triplicate, not the commisioner.
Also, the tories have stated they will reduce paperwork.



They've looked at other countries and seen the positive effect having an accountable commisioner has had.



Oh I don't know, they promised to take on the trade unions and stop the strikes that were crippling the country, seem to recall that happened.
The also promised to reduce crime and under Howard that actually happened.



True, money gained by the police through speed cameras has to be used in road safety, however this includes conferences with banquets at 5 star hotels discussing road safety.

Councillors may or may not represent a political party (at local level there are a fair few independent as well and three line whips); whatever they are charged with representing their community and, as a body drawn up from across the local spectrum, are more representative than an elected commissioner. You're not paying for 17 members as such either; councillors have much wider remits than being on the PA.

The Tories always say they're going to cut red tape and taxes, make life all rosy, bring world peace etc Labour are no better. And the Tories crippled the unions like they said they would. That's one pledge that we could have done with them not keeping (all those NTLers out there watching jobs haemorrage abroad might now bre wishing they had access to effective joint action and fairer employment laws). They also said the NHS was safe in their hands. Pledges, promises blah, blah, bleedin' blah. We have stagnant politics (Tory and Labour) which does us no favours and its introduction to policing would be dangerous and ineffective.

Five star hotels?! Where did that come from. I'm guessing that it's copyright Associated Newspapers! Incidentally did crime fall under the Tories - I thought not. I remember Howard saying prison works which is quite patently not true unless he meant learning new criminal tricks and being returned to the community to try them out counts.


EDIT. And one other thing Accountability? Why should this proposal make anybody/organisation more accountable? Detection, clear up, crime rates etc are already published (and we get details of where with our council tax bills here) it's just people can't be @arsed to look them up and then moan to the powers that be. Instead they're spoon fed selective items via the media (witness the speed camera/farmer Martin/Sarah's law stuff). This will only increase when you have an elected commissioner. It'll all become dominated, even more than it is now, by single issues such as, yawn, the speed camera debate (Don't even think of starting that one up again!!)

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Xaccers

If there is no operational justification for it, the cheif constable would not have to impliment it. For example, if the commisioner said he wanted all paedophiles to be followed, the cheif constable would be within his rights to not include that in his annual operations plan.
However, if the commisioner said that the police should tackle the very real problem of kids on a certain estate causing criminal damage, then it would be the responsibility of the chief constable to impliment that within his operational plan. This is what happens now.

So, the commissioner would have a purely consultative role, with no actual power.. Not sure how having someone with no actual power in this position actually makes the police more accountable.

Another thing. If our current system is causing problems now, why was it not causing problems when the tories were in power? It was largely the same system.

Councillors represent their political party and very few people realise what the PA does (as demonstrated by some participants in this thread), let alone that it actually exists!
The public also has no say in the selection of which councillors join the PA.
That is not accountability.

My point is that if crime is a problem in an area, then people may well see that as a failiure on behalf of their local councillors, and be less likely to elect them in future.

As for costs, rather than paying for 17 people in a PA, you've got just the one.
Unless the goverment makes tackling crime harder for the police, nothing the commisioner can do will increase the paperwork or interfere with the police's ability to tackle crime.
It is the home office that decides proceedure, like what forms need to be filled out in triplicate, not the commisioner.

Yet.

I think there are problems within the police, but the whole system needs attention, not just one part (from the home secretary downwards).

Also, the tories have stated they will reduce paperwork.

They have stated that before. Mainly when they effectively privatised the NHS. Having worked in the privatised NHS, I would dread to see how much paperwork they had before if the amount I had to deal with was reduced. The paperwork in the system actually increased. Apparently a similar thing happened with the Railways.. Still, this isn't a discussion on Privatisation.

They've looked at other countries and seen the positive effect having an accountable commisioner has had.

Where?

Oh I don't know, they promised to take on the trade unions and stop the strikes that were crippling the country, seem to recall that happened.

This actually resulted in England having some ofthe longest working hours in Europe..

True, money gained by the police through speed cameras has to be used in road safety, however this includes conferences with banquets at 5 star hotels discussing road safety.
Now unless the police are able to use the money to install speed bumps or redesign roads, the only thing they can do for road safety is install more cameras, or have more patrol cars (hmm why haven't they done that?)
Of course, all these cameras aren't just raking in money for the police, they're raking in huge amounts of tax for the treasury, could this be one of the reasons why the goverment are so pro cameras when more effective safety devices are available but don't bring in any money?

True, I do agree that it is slightly confusing that the Police run some road safety measures (cameras and other enforcement system) while local councils run others (prevention methods). Maybe local councils should run all..

Still, there is one way around speed cameras. Don't speed..

[punky]

Instead of all this talk about new commissioners and such, how about keeping the same command structure, but making the chief superintendents publically accountable? As of now, the only people that can sack them are their bosses, and that doesn't really reflect the will of the people. The Tories shouldn't really be pushing for extra bureaucracy, as small governments are the cornerstone of all conservative agendas. That is for Labour to do. Politics should be kept out of the job, because the post would have no real link to the government.

I don't think that making a senior figure publically accountable will automatically make them focus on single "buzzword" issues. So long as the police have a reasonable turnover rate on solving crimes then the public will always favour the candidate. That is what people want at the end of the day, for the police to solve crimes. If one candidate doubled the conviction rate for burglars (or any serious crime), but quadrupled (or more) speed cameras, then I for one would be happy with that. And if they are outside schools, so much the better.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by punky

Instead of all this talk about new commissioners and such, how about keeping the same command structure, but making the chief superintendents publically accountable? As of now, the only people that can sack them are their bosses, and that doesn't really reflect the will of the people. The Tories shouldn't really be pushing for extra bureaucracy, as small governments are the cornerstone of all conservative agendas. That is for Labour to do. Politics should be kept out of the job, because the post would have no real link to the government.

I don't think that making a senior figure publically accountable will automatically make them focus on single "buzzword" issues. So long as the police have a reasonable turnover rate on solving crimes then the public will always favour the candidate. That is what people want at the end of the day, for the police to solve crimes. If one candidate doubled the conviction rate for burglars (or any serious crime), but quadrupled (or more) speed cameras. And if they are outside schools, so much the better.

I do agree, with your post, and I do agree that not all commissioners would concentrate on the trendy crimes. However, I do think some would, and that is what concerns me.