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.

Labour ditch Police candidate for Northamptonshire over arrest

 

The Labour Party has disowned Lee Barron as its Police and Crime Commissioner candidate for Northamptonshire after it emerged that he was once arrested. As nominations have closed it is too late for them to choose another candidate in this marginal constituency.

The Northampton Chronicle reports that Mr Barron "was watching England play in the World Cup in a Northampton pub in 1990 when trouble flared":

A friend was arrested and Mr Barron, aged 19 at the time, tried to convince police he should be left with him rather than taken into custody.

Instead, Mr Barron himself was arrested for wilful obstruction and received a £20 fine.

Mr Barron says:

Labour Police and Crime Commissioner candidates should come clean on UNISON funding

The Police Federation is the trade union for police officers. A pretty appalling outfit it is too. However, for the Police Community Support Officers, and many police support staff, the union they tend to join is UNISON. UNISON is the second largest donor to the Labour Party handing over £2 million a year. In return they have a big say in the selection of Party candidates - for instance for Police and Crime Commissioners.

UNISON is certainly throwing its weight around. The Labour candidate for Gwent has pledged to it, that he will reinstate some Custody Detention Officers.

The "Annual Report" of UNISON's "Fighting Privatisation in Police and Justice" campaign says:

"Our ‘Stop Police Privatisation’ campaign continues and it is gathering support. We need to ensure that UNISON-backed police and crime commissioner candidates are fully supportive of this campaign and that they are signed up to UNISON’s agenda for police and justice."

The Lib Dems are contesting only half the Police Commissioner elections

Although the nominations have closed for the Police and Crime Commissioner elections, the names of all the candidates have not yet been officially published. However the Police Foundation has been making an effort to keep track and their list is likely to be pretty accurate.

They include 23 Lib Dem candidates for the 41 contests. I suppose one or two of them may drop out or there may be one or two that slipped in at the last minute. The official Party website only acknowledges 13. But for the Lib Dems to be standing in roughly half the constituencies is a poor show.

This is a political party that is supposed to believe in radical change, in making the state more accountable to the citizen, and in boosting local democracy. They are also coalition partners in the Government that has brought in the reforms. Yet when it comes to it,, their response is a shrug.

Poster launched for police commissioner election as YouGov poll says anti social behaviour is priority

Amidst all the fetting about apathy and a low turnout for the Police and Crime Commissoner elections on November 15th, Phil Butler, the Conservative candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner in Northumbria is getting on with running an energetic campaign. He has got this hard hitting poster going up on billboards in Sunderland and Newcastle. If the 2010 General Election result was reflected then Labour would win in Northumbria. Yet it is quite apparent that there is not a whiff of defeatism from Mr Butler, a former police officer.

Call to sell off "extravagant" Police Authority building

Matthew Grove, the Conservative candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner for Humberside has proposed selling the Police Authority's offices.

He says:

The Humberside Police Authority does not need to have its offices located in the rather grand former gentleman’s club at Pacific Exchange, 40 High Street in Hull, a property valued at up to £0.5 million.

The oak panelled former gentleman’s club with deep carpet and leather Chesterfield sofas is more in keeping with the House of Lords – therefore my intention if elected, would be to sell off this luxurious building and relocate to somewhere more modest, with my priority being to share a suitable building with another local organisation as near to the Humber Bridge as possible.

This will reduce the costs for both the Commissioner’s Office for any partner organisation with which an existing building will be shared. A location near the Humber Bridge will ensure the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner is more readily accessible to those people on both the North and South Bank.

The forgotten partner – Safer Deals to complement City Deals

In a new paper, to be launched today at Party Conference Westminster City Council’s Cabinet Member for Community Protection, Cllr Nickie Aiken proposes a new model to deliver localised policing and criminal justice in partnership with Police and Crime Commissioners.

Heralded as the biggest shake up to the service for decades Police and Crime Commissioners offer the opportunity to radically transform local criminal justice. Already a topic of debate at this year’s party conferences there is now an opportunity for ambitious PPCs and their local authority partners to deliver radical solutions to reduce crime.

The cries of low voter turnout, “postcode lottery” in policing and the cost of elections are issues for debate – but they are parochial concerns missing the bigger picture. An injection of democracy and accountability in policing will lead to a more responsive, localised and, ultimately effective, police service.

Police and Crime Commissioners must ensure better protection of witnesses

Former Deputy Chief Constable of North Yorkshire Peter Walker says the courts treat victims badly and welcomes Police and Crime Commissioners taking responsibility

I sometimes wonder why institutions that exist solely because this country is a democracy should be so united against the principle of electoral accountability on occasions.

It is as though elections are generally a good idea, but if they are to be used to extend accountability to areas previously regarded as the private domain of people already in charge of them, then this must be wrong.

No more has this been manifested than in the context of electing Police and Crime Commissioners.  The latest salvo comes, according to the Observer, from the judiciary.  "Judges warn of disastrous reforms to the justice system" the headline tells us.

The report goes on to describe an "astonishing attack, approved by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales", which includes "grave concerns" about allowing Police and Crime Commissioners to become
responsible for victim support services.

The premise of their argument appears to be that Commissioners will choose what services are offered. Mr Justice Calvert-Smith is quoted as saying: "The proposal that the service provided to victims and witnesses… be left to individual police and crime commissioners elected on political platforms is potentially disastrous."

Will the turnout for the Police Commissioner elections be derisory?

The Electoral Reform Society is projecting a turnout of just 18.5% in the elections on November 15th for Police and Crime Commissioners. Looking at comparative turnout in Council byelections it believes the proportion of the electorate voting will be 6% down compared to if they had been held in May. This would be a record low - well below the turnout for local elections in 1998 for metropolitan councils which was 25.2%.

Has the ERS asked itself why the elections are being held in November? It was because Nick Clegg wanted to limit the losses of Lib Dem councillors to the Conservatives in the elections that took place on May 3rd. He thought that Conservative supporters would be more motivated than Lib Dems to vote in the Police and Crime Commissioner elections. I think he was probably on to something - it doesn't exactly help that the Lib Dems, supposed champions of localism, are generally not putting up candidates.

Another reason Mr Clegg was so concerned was that in 2011 we had Conservatives motivated to vote No in the AV referendum, and thus also helping the Conservatives to make gains in the local elections the same day. The ERS should remember all about that referendum as they paid for the disastrous Yes campaign.

Despite the G4S Olympics shambles the police still need private sector efficiencies

Peter Walker, a former Deputy Chief Constable of North Yorkshire, calls for a balanced approach to whcih police functions are outsourced - it is not the only way to improve value for money

Fresh from attending the Olympics, or watching them on television, prospective Police & Crime Commissioner candidates will have two impressions - one about the absolute shambles G4S made of providing security staff and the other concerning the tremendous job done by the military personnel and Police Officers to keep them safe.

That the operation was scaled up massively at short notice and the people concerned had travelled far from home at great personal and family inconvenience was never apparent and as Theresa May and Nick Herbert have both said, Britain demonstrated just how good our military and police services can be.

No doubt the guillotine blade is being sharpened at G4S to deal with the immense reputational damage done to that company, but there are wider implications for policing - especially as many of the "big players" in the field have similar reputational challenges to handle, Reliance (prisoner handling), KBR (Guantanamo Bay), this is a sector that carries presentational difficulties no matter what the benefits may be.

Before the news about G4S, a number of forces were considering significant "outsourcing" arrangements. Whilst the West Midlands and Surrey were at the forefront, many more had appended their organisation to the tender document, so they could take advantage of the arrangements later if needs be.