PCC's : Pathetic, Pointless. Cronyism

Just a year after the public registered their approval of the election of  Police Crime Commissioners PCCs by largely not voting, and which saw less than 15% in Wales bothering to turn out. Including a Newport Polling Station which saw no one bother to exercise their franchise.  There comes  a poll revealing that nine out of 10 people in the UK cannot name the politicians who hold their police forces to account.

According to the Wasting Mule a year after commissioners took office, at a cost of £75m, a YouGov survey found that two thirds of people felt the commissioners had made no difference to police accountability.

Around 64% said that they had noticed no difference in the effectiveness of their local force.

Christopher Salmon, the commissioner for Dyfed-Powys said:

' “It’s disappointing not more people know of us, but it’s our job to raise our profiles and explain what we’re doing for the public.“I think our main achievement has been to create an office which offers a voice to the public and offers a focus on policing crime, particularly low-level crime which may not always grab the headlines but does cause untold misery to victims.”

Although recognition rates revealed by the YouGov poll are low, they are slightly better than for the police authorities that preceded them.

It should be afterthe money spent electing them which would have been better suited given directly to the Police.

Police and crime commissioner for South Wales, Alun Michael, said:

 “On election, I said I was determined to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.“This is something which I have embedded in the South Wales Police approach during the first year. For me, the point of being a police and crime commissioner is to add value to the police service in South Wales.

Perhaps its better for the PCC's that people don't know who they are. Because for most of us who have paid attention thier main achievements have been to appoint their mates as their deputies leading to charges of cronyism or controversial removals of their Chief Constable.

This is looking like one of the greatest failures in changes to policing ever . Can anyone see much of an increase in voting next time?

Well maybe;But I suspect that will be people turning out to vote against the current incumbent.

How long will it be the Politicians who were responsible for this farce admit it has failed and scrap it.

But here in Wales we can start by calling for policing to be devolved to our Assembly and we can look at how we can make our Police both accountable and deployed in the way which serves us as we want.