Police Commisioner Election

[hilux]

Its an umitigated disaster in the making.

The top brass in each force will NOT take it up the backside from some elected moron who doesnt know diddly squat about policing on £100,000 a year for four years only (unless re-elected) so if he fails he simply walks away leaving the force to pick up the bill.

I know people in the police and I am told the amount of experienced officers and senior brass that have done their service and have given notice to leave in the next year alone is 5 times the average I am told.

[Norman Verona]

The underlying problem we have with our police forces is the 5 year/55 age rule. The idea, from our politicians, is that anyone over 55 is no longer fit enough to chase criminals. Fair enough but it takes no consideration of the experience that also retires. 55 year old CID officers do not normally chase criminals down the street, they use their brains.

The other problem is pensions. The police pension comes out of capital. In other words it's paid to retired bobbies as wages. No one thought about this when the retirement age was lowered. Now the main reason we have so few policemen on the beat is the "wages" paid to the retirees.

Yet again, our elected representatives have a good idea but just get the detail wrong. It's the chief constable that should be elected from the ranks of the senior officers. It will take a few elections for this to work. But work it will when the chief constable understands he's got to ensure his job by taking notice of what his voters want from him.

I worked with the South Yorkshire force for 11 years. As an observation I would say all the financial savings required could be made by cutting out waste and extravagance. The other big saving can be made by cutting back on the avalanche of new legislation which requires massive amounts of training for the people who have to uphold all these new laws.

The ACC I dealt with reckoned for every working bobby he needed another 3. 2 in training and 1 off sick.