Complaint against Stephen Greenhalgh rejected

A great tactic for the Left in seeking to defeat a policy they don't like is through vexatious complaints. If they can't get their way through the ballot box they can seek a Judicial Review (fronted by a welfare claimant so it can be funded on Legal Aid) or make an array of complaints to official bodies. No matter how spurious such claims may be, or how expensive they are for the taxpayer, there is no downside for those making them. Even if they lose: They still cause delay. There is the propaganda value when the complaint is made (its subsequent dismissal is generally regarded as less newsworthy.)

An example today comes with the rejection by the Independent Police Complaints Commission of a complaint made against the the Deputy Mayor of London, Stephen Greenhalgh which related to Mr Greenhalgh’s conduct while leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council.

It concerns the redevelopment of the West Ken and Gibbs Green estates and a baseless claim that residents who supported the redevelopment would be give preferential treatment in the allocation of future housing.

The complaint was made by Jonathan Rosenberg, a Paddington resident and old henchman of Ken Livingstone, that Mr Greenhalgh sanctioned "improper inducements" - that would be misconduct in public office which is a criminal offence.

After four months of extensive investigations, interviews with residents, etc the IPCC found an "absence of any evidence which would indicate that Mr Greenhalgh may have committed a criminal offence."

Putting bobbies before buildings

Stephen Greenhalgh, London's Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, says selling New Scotland Yard is about spending money on policing not property

The Mayor’s mission is to make London the safest big city on earth. The Mayor's Office for Policing And Crime (MOPAC) has set the Metropolitan Police Service the challenge to cut key neighbourhood crimes by 20%, boost public confidence by 20% and cut costs by 20%. Quite simply, the MOPAC 20/20/20 challenge requires the Met to do more with less. London's first ever Police and Crime Plan 2013-16 has outlined our plan to deliver the Mayor's mission.

Since Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe’s appointment as Commissioner, the Met have made impressive progress – crime is down 6% in the last year alone and serious youth violence has been cut by almost a third. However the budget challenge is unprecedented. Never before has the Met needed to make such large savings – £500 million by 2016.  Until now, every Commissioner of the Metropolis has had more resources every year.

Unlike other elected Police & Crime Commissioners around the country (mostly Labour ones), Boris has chosen not to hike the police precept and load more cost on to council taxpayers. In addition the Mayor’s manifesto had a clear pledge to keep officer numbers high – at or around 32,000 – because those numbers are what is needed to keep a growing capital safe. Raising taxes or slashing police numbers are not options open to MOPAC to balance the books. Nor is another exceptional hand-out from the Home Office likely to be forthcoming.

Labour's smear campaign against Stephen Greenhalgh

The Metropolitan Police is embarking on an era of the most radical reform since it was founded in 1829. There will be a huge shift in spending from buildings to bobbies.

New Scotland Yard will be for sale as the number of buildings is reduced from 497 to 300. Although there will be fewer police stations the police will be more accessible. Rather than shut away in grim buildings they will be at "access points" in libraries and supermarkets, Post Offices and Town Hall foyers. The online service will be improved. However each London borough will retain at least one police station open 24/7.

The number of supervisors and administrators will go down but the number of police officers on the beat will increase. The number in Safer Neighbourhood Teams will increase from 2,000 to 4,600. On top of that there will be more Special Constables. This dramatic increase in police access points and front line policing is to be achieved while reducing costs by half a billion a year. Court delays will be tackled.

All this is rather important to Londoners. There is doubtless more that could be done. What do the police still patrol so often in pairs? Could police spend more time in uniform and less in plain clothes?   Could the police do their paperwork in uniform at cafes to increase their visibility and accessibility to the public? Some cafes already provide half price meals to police in uniform and in New York this approach has been a success.

Investigation under way into Labour police commissioner's expenses

The Labour Party are standing by Clive Grunshaw their Police and Crime Commissioner for Lancashire. This is despite serious irregularaties in Mr Grunshaw's expenses which emerged last month. The claims were to Lancashire County Council and the Lancashire Police Authority for overlapping meetings.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission are mounting an investigation. Investigating what though? The repeated discrepancies don't seem to be denied by Mr Grunshaw. So the issue is whether his insistence that they are innocent mistakes is plausible. Then arising from that whether merely to repay the excess he has claimed over what he was due is sufficient penalty.

Already Mr Grunshaw's credibility is in shreds. He should resign.

What if he doesn't? There is also a decision for the Labour Party. At the moment Mr Grunshaw remains an official Labour Party politician. Should he not at least be suspended until the IPCC reports?

Call for Labour police commissioner to resign over double claiming for expenses

An investigation by Cllr Sam Chapman at the Top of the Cops blog has found that Cllr Clive Grunshaw, the newly elected Labour Police and Crime Commissioner for Lancashire, has some serious irregularities involving his expenses.

Freedom of Information requests show that he was travel and subsistence costs for going from his home in Fleetwood to Preston both from Lancashire Police Authority and from Lancashire County Council for meetings that were one after another.

For example:

"On 1 July 2010 the Police Authority claim is from 8 am to 2 pm with a 56 mile round trip to Lancaster Town Hall, whereas the County Council has a claim from 12 noon to 5 pm and a 46 mile round trip to County Hall in Preston. The direct route from Lancaster to Preston is 23 miles, which is 28 miles less than the amount claimed when travelling via Grunshaw’s home. Time travel is clearly demanding in calorie terms, as both claims involve claims for food from the taxpayer (£7.45 and £11.62 respectively). The authorities have no records of the receipts."

Every London borough will maintain a police station open 24 hours a day

There was an article (£) in The Times this morning about plans by the Metropolitan Police to reduce the number of buildings they own. This is both to reduce costs and release funds for more police on the beat. Some police stations have very low numbers visiting to report crime. Increasingly people prefer to contact the police by phone or email. So some police stations will close and instead the police will open reporting counters at places like supermarkets, cafes, churches and football clubs. It means contact between the police and the public should increase while costs are reduced.

What if you want to report a crime confidentially?

At the Mayor of London Question Time meeting with the London Assembly meeting on November 21st, Boris Johnson said:

Every borough must have a 24 hour police station where the public can go in confidence and report serious crime; that is absolutely essential.

After the PCC elections what happens next?

Peter Walker, former deputy Chief Constable of North Yorkshire,  says many of the new Police and Crime Commissioners are in for a shock

Ever since Thursday's Police Commissioner elections, keyboards have been clicking in newsrooms across the country bemoaning the whole affair. Much of what is being published contains statements of the blindingly obvious, informed by the commentators' views about the proposal and process before the elections took place.

I've always held the view that once the elections were over, the real work on our proposal to develop more effective and locally understood approaches to police governance would start, they would be different from one area to another and would drive performance in a manner that has real local resonance. I'm also not stupid enough to think that there aren't a lot of people who disagree with this analysis and who have major reservations about the reform and the risks they perceive it brings.

One of the greatest frustrations for police officers is the complete lack of understanding the vast majority of the public have of the complexities of their job. In my short and unspectacular political career (I unsuccessfully applied to be the Conservative candidate in North Yorkshire) I regularly asked people how many police officers they thought were on duty in their area at night. That I never received a correct answer was unsurprising, but communities thinking that more police are on duty by a factor of at least ten - which was their consistent response - is a misapprehension that creates a matrix of ill-informed judgements about what level of service can be provided.

PCC results shows the Conservatives need better candidate selection

Cllr Sam Chapman, the Editor of TopOfTheCops.com and a Lancashire County Councillor, says the Conservatives suffered in the PCC elections by having cliques choosing candidates. Selections need to be fair, open and encourage as many as possible to take part

This week, in the elections for the flagship Police and Crime Commissioner policy, the Conservative Party failed to win in Surrey. Yes, you read that right, the Conservatives lost in Surrey. And the party had a good, credible, experienced and pleasant candidate in the form of Julie Iles, but still lost. Technically the party could blame the voting system except they lead the Government that chose it and, even on first preference votes, Iles was only a fraction ahead of the eventual winner, Independent and former Chief Superintendent Kevin Hurley.

The woes in Surrey were repeated in Hampshire, yes Hampshire, where Michael Mates lost to Simon Hayes, another Independent and former Conservative Police Authority chairman. In Norfolk it happened again, as Conservative candidate Jamie Athill was beaten by another former Conservative Police Authority chairman.

What all these contests have in common is that the local Conservative selection processes were felt by some to be so unsatisfactory that the official candidate could not be supported and these elections turned into unofficial primary elections, where voters used their first and supplementary votes not merely to choose a Conservative, but to choose what type of Conservative they wanted, and in all three cases it was the alienated ex-Conservative who was chosen.

Labour's West Midlands Police Crime Commissioner candidate doesn't want the job

Labour really have chosen a sullen bunch of has beens and union placemen as their candidates for the Police and Crime Commissioner election on Thursday. There was an interview in The Times (£) this morning with Cllr Bob Jones, Labour's candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner, who says:

"I’d be more than happy to go down in the pub quizzes as the first and last PCC for the West Midlands."

He adds:

“One of the biggest questions I get asked is Why? Why do we need this post? Why are we spending £100 million creating a new breed of politician?”

If Cllr Jones is honest he will reply that this £100 million cost will be matched by the savings from scrapping the Police Authorities. He would point out that the £100,000 a year salary is less than the total spent on allowances for the West Midland Police Authority.

Cllr Jones should be aware if the generous allowances paid out to the 14 members of that talking shop as he has been on the receiving end of them since 1986.

Police Commissioner elections: Could Prescott lose?

One way of predicting the results of the Police and Crime Commissioner elections is look at the results at the last General Election in the relevant areas and then make an adjustment reflecting the swing to Labour indicated by the opinion polls. The Police Foundation offered some analysis along these lines which I reported in August.

The Local Government Chronicle have published (£) some further thoughts on the subject with a few tentative predictions from Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher.

They suspect independents will struggle as the constituencies are so large. Looking at local council byelections they say holding the elections in November will reduce turnout by 5%.

The Supplementary Vote system is operating. If no candidate wins over 50% of first preferences then the top two candidates have added to their tally any second preferences of those voting for the other candidates. But how much diffference will it make? Often voters don't exercise a second preference or use it for another candidate who is eliminated.