Top policeman’s warning on planned Shropshire changes
Thursday 13th January 2011, 10:27AM GMT.
Police in Shropshire will have to deal with one of the worst structural changes to the service in the past 50 years, the chief constable of West Mercia Police has warned.
Paul West spoke out last night about the planned abolition of police authorities and the introduction of directly elected police and crime commissioners.
He said the move, which could come into effect in May 2012, would change the national landscape of policing but ultimately sell the Shropshire public short, leaving a service which was not accountable or transparent.
The West Mercia Police Authority consultation evening about the “Future of Policing in 2011 and Beyond” was attended by about 15 members of the public at Shrewsbury Town FC’s Greenhous Meadow stadium.
Mr West, who is standing down in the summer from the position he has held for eight years, said: “It’s the worst idea in policy I’ve ever come across.”
“It’s purely politically driven.
“It’s an agreement between the coalition government and it was in neither of their manifestos.
“The Great British public have not got a clue what is going on.
“I’ve been a police officer for 30 years and it’s the biggest change I have ever seen.
“It’s one of the worst changes to policy in the last 50 years.
“We have around four meetings a year with the police authority. The public can attend, I am very much held to account and it’s uncomfortable.
“Under the new arrangement the meeting will take place over a coffee in an office.
“It is not keeping with accountability or transparency.
“For any chief constable in the future as long as they have a good relationship with the commissioner it will be a doddle.”
West Mercia Police is already facing a 20 per cent cut in government funding over the next financial year.
It will aim to protect front line services but it has been claimed it is “inevitable” services will suffer due to a £16 million funding shortfall.
Savings will be made by dipping into reserves and reducing the workforce by six per cent with the loss of 98 police officer roles and 189 police staff roles.
But it is the disbandment of police authorities which Mr West said will have a lasting impact on the service’s efficiency.
He said: “What is being proposed is completely inappropriate and it’s up to people like me to speak out and make that clear.
“It’s a really bad idea and it’s going to sell the public short.”
By Sam Pinnington
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Unaccountable?
No worse than aboslutely every other aspect of Britain.
Politicians, civil servants, we see it all the time. They get paid huge salaries to be responsible but when they invariably screw it all up, it is never their fault:
Shoesmith, Blair, Brown are the big names but this apathy from people on massive pay deals and even more extravagant pensions is evident throughout the public service.
I for one am for this, and had the meeting been advertised I would have attended. At least under the proposals we, the paymasters, will at least have some chance of getting rid of incompetent public servants.
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Suggest you get along to the Civic Offices in Telford on Monday night at 7 p.m. because there is another meeting.
Me thinks you have not got a clue what you are talking about. Replace what public servants? The plan is to replace the Police Authority which is made up of councillors and independent members appointed from the public with one person being paid £120,000 a year – real democracy and real value for money!
Spend the money on policing not some half baked public school idea.
Wake up before it is too late.
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Andy,
Not only are you ignorant in respect of what constitutes a police authority, you also seem to have little clue regarding what most public servants are paid. Where are these ‘huge salaries’?
If you want to look for overpaid people, look no further than the senior execs of FTSE 100 comapnies, whose remuneration rises and rises every year, far in excess of inflation, whilst they impose job cuts and pay freezes and cuts on their minions.
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I quite like seeing Policemen and Policewomen on the ‘beat’, it’s reassuring. But it will be an ominous and Orwellian payday for us when a split opens up between the Police and the public…and I can feel something shifting. There is discontent in the air and the coming fuel protests are going to show where the country is taking itself.
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If you see them again send them to Bridgnorth you never see them on the beat.You do see some of the artificial ones [PCSO's]now and again.Sack them all then re-instate them on the proviso they walk the beat not cruise in their cars,i bet there will have a dire shortage of bobbies.
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The Meeting ‘was attended by about 15 members of the public’ ~ says it all really …. no one could care less about the Politics behind the scenes…. people just want the Police on the streets …
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You can only push some of the people some of the time, To push all the people all of the time leads to anarchy and it is coming back sooner than the authorities think and its the authorities fault, bring it on and lets get this country back on its feet.
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This government is really messing up it puts in half thought out policies then has to change them on the fly. it puts MP’s who fiddled their expenses in to ministerial posts just to reinforce to the public that it doesn’t matter what we think. It breaks promises on student fees leaving thousands wondering if they could ever realistically go to uni. In effect they will create a two tier system in education. They promise a fuel cap but we see fuel at the highest prices ever and no cap in site. cameron makes a fool of himself and the UK at the first European mtg he attends by negotiating something that wasn’t on the agenda – again promises a lot and delivers nothing. they promised to protect the MOD but devastate it. They let children die because they wont give them the flu vaccine – something that was available under the last government. they tell us about the big society and how we should all be part of it but Thatcher states there is no such thing as society. Now with all the uprising this will cause we are going to lose the front line services of the police – another promise they made broken. And the answer they give to all of this – blame the last government. Weak or what. Yes the last government got things wrong but the policy to remove controls on the banks was put in by the Conservative party and Labour were just too weak to put sufficient controls back in place. Politicians sort yourselves out.
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As soon as Sir Philip Green and the rest of the offshore patriots join The Big Society then i’m in too, until then it’s just condescending hot air from a pasty faced Eton clever boy.
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