Behind The Headlines: Democracy in action or utter farce?
DEMOCRACY in action or a complete and utter farce?
This week’s meeting of Northamptonshire Police Authority displayed the very best and absolute worst of the current system of governing our police forces. And behind it all loomed the increasingly domineering presence of the county’s soon-to-be elected police commissioner.
Meetings of the authority are (much to this reporter’s frustration) usually relatively sedate affairs with consensus generally ruling the roost.
Not so on Wednesday.
The debate centred around money and precisely where the police should get it from, with members essentially left with two options.
The first was to freeze council tax and leave police chiefs with the job of cutting 333 police staff jobs, axing 25 PCSOs and losing 100 police officers over the next four years. The “reward” for not putting up taxes was a one-off grant of around £1.3 million, the equivalent of a three per cent tax rise. The proposal was a one-time, take-it-or-leave-it offer of “free money” from the Government.
The alternative was to ask the people of Northamptonshire to put their hands in their increasingly shallow pockets and pay more for their policing. About two pence a day more to be precise.
The four per cent tax rise would have given the force around £450,000 more next year, which could have been used to cut down on front-line losses.
The decision split the authority (which is made up of nine nominated Northamptonshire County Councillors and eight independent members) down the middle.
On one side of the room you had seven Conservative county council members all determined to freeze council tax, take the “free money” and not burden the county’s hard-up taxpayers with a penny more taxation.
On the other side sat a Labour councillor, a Lib Dem member and seven (to add to the confusion one person was at a funeral) independent members all determined to give the Chief Constable as much money as possible.
The split was potentially fatal, as any motion had to be approved by a majority and at least five councillors.
Another ingredient to add to the potentially toxic pot was the fact that it was the same seven Conservative members who will, in all probability, vote to slash £500,000 a year funding for 16 PCSOs in the county later this month. Among them sat Jim Harker, the leader of Northamptonshire County Council.
As one independent member put it: “It feels like you are saying you can’t afford to pay for policing but you are also telling us we can’t pay for it either.”
A coffee break was taken. Proceedings were deferred for everyone to have a little think.
A hour or so of crisis meetings were held and the result was a deal. A compromise.
To pacify the authority members who were so obviously aggrieved at the county council’s stance, Mr Harker revealed that, following discussions with finance officers and his chief executive, the county council would now be prepared to contribute £300,000 of its reserves to the police pot.
However, the money would not pay for PCSOs.
It would instead pay for part of a police anti-violence programme being launched this year. The money Northamptonshire Police in turn saved could then be used to minimise front-line cuts, Mr Harker said. Convenient, some observers added.
Yet that was not quite the end of the chapter.
The vote was counted as seven in favour of the tax freeze, six against and three abstentions.
However, concern was then raised about whether this was in fact a majority.
No, said some. Of course, said others.
After general confusion, the final decision was to hold the vote again, but first a new proposal had to be put forward for consideration. And so the record books will record that in the financial year of 2012-13 Northamptonshire Council agreed to contribute the exact total of £300,000, plus a solitary £1, to the police budget. Chaos.
This was the last time the authority will set a budget. Good riddance, people have told me. This clearly shows they are not fit for purpose, they said.
They could be right.
Next year, one man or woman will, sitting alone, be able to dictate to the Chief Constable what he has to spend and where his priorities should lie. That is an immense amount of power for one person to have.
Problems will not disappear, however. There will still be a massive amount of money to be saved. The commissioner is likely to have some stark choices. Among them will be high tax, or huge cuts.
The commissioner will give residents one person to hold to account and it will cut out a lot of the bureaucracy. But it will also cut out much of the debate.
This week showed, in a rather cumbersome way, that police authorities can actually work. Yes, it was a bit of a farce. But there was a healthy debate. There was thought, discussion and there was a compromise. As one senior participant told me afterwards: “How on earth is one person supposed to deal with all this next year?”
It could be interesting.
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Comments
There are 5 comments to this article
Page 1 of 1
HrolfK
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 08:13 PMBy taking the 'free' money now, the increase in future will be even more dramatic - because they have to fill the gap the free money will leave. Or are they expecting to cut even more police numbers? The Conservatives are short-termist fools - asset strippers working for their corporate pay-masters. Thinking about 'hard-pressed tax-payers'? Their record hardly backs that up - who gets the next portrait?
SteveRiches
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 07:20 PMThe trouble with making any sense of all this is that any cut in money is presented - understandably - as meaning the loss of "x" number of jobs, whereas the really hard statistic to evaluate is the one that shows how much any cut will affect the ability of the police to fight and solve the crimes we all see as important.
lady muck
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 07:15 PMNot easy to follow...how about just taking the money and banking on a big coalition pre-election brib in 2015 ?
Common sense
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 04:47 PMSounds farcical but only to be expected
willi eckaslyke
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 02:26 PMWhichever way you look at it, it's no way to run a police force; the criminals and others are laughing like drains...There's a fair likelihood that goings-on at the Olympic Games will force a change in the way this country is policed...just a crying shame it won't happen before that though.
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