WHAT AN OBSCENE WASTE OT TAX PAYERS CASH
The thin blue gravy train: How new police commissioners are appointing their friends as deputies - on up to £68,000 a year
• New unelected jobs are being created even though police and crime commissioners (PCCs) already have offices full of staff
• Many have handed them to friends and political allies
• Use of taxpayers’ money to put PCC's 'mates in cushy jobs' will damage public confidence, expert warns
By Martin Beckford
PUBLISHED: 22:05, 1 December 2012 | UPDATED: 08:07, 2 December 2012
The row over the cost of Britain’s police commissioners grew last night after a Mail on Sunday investigation found that more than a dozen of them have appointed deputies on wages of up to £68,000.
Just weeks after the £75 million vote that saw a record low turnout for a national election, a third of the crime chiefs are giving jobs to councillors, magistrates and former police officers to help them in their roles.
Some are being paid £68,000 a year – more than backbench MPs earn and almost enough to pay for three constables, who start on £23,500.
The new unelected jobs are being created even though police and crime commissioners (PCCs) have offices full of staff from the Police Authorities they replaced.
They do not have to advertise the posts and many have handed them to friends and political allies.
It has raised concerns that the PCCs, who themselves earn up to £100,000 a year, are not as accountable as they were meant to be – and are wasting cash that could be spent on frontline services to catch criminals.
Sam Chapman, editor of the Top Of The Cops blog on PCCs, warned: ‘If commissioners use taxpayers’ money to put their mates in cushy jobs no one else can apply for, they risk damaging public confidence.’
Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance campaign group, said: ‘Elected police commissioners were meant to cut out the expense and unelected bureaucracy of Police Authorities.
‘Taxpayers will be deeply depressed to see that they appear keen on appointing more bureaucrats.
Thankfully, voters will get the chance to vote out candidates who appear more keen on building empires than dealing with local policing priorities.’
New deputy commissioners include:
• Yvonne Mosquito, a Labour councillor who will be paid £65,000 for a 32-hour working week by West Midlands PCC Bob Jones. He wrote that he chose her as she is a ‘black female’ who has the ‘empathy and emotional intelligence’ to complement his business skills. She will continue to receive £27,000 for two council roles.
• Brian Ashton, ex-Mayor of Ely, who will get £28,000 for two to three days a week in Cambridgeshire. Sir Graham Bright, the PCC, said his Tory Party colleague was a businessman who had experience of local government.
• David Carroll, who will be paid £35,000 to work 22 hours a week in Thames Valley. He sat with the PCC, Anthony Stansfeld, on the area’s old Police Authority committee and, like him, is a Tory councillor.
Meanwhile, Adam Simmonds in Northamptonshire has appointed four ‘assistant commissioners’ – using a title given to senior officers in Scotland Yard – on £65,000 each, including his election agent, an established Tory activist called Kathryn Buckle.
The highest paid deputy is former policeman Mark Dennett, on £68,000 as assistant to Vera Baird in Northumbria.
In total, 16 of the 41 PCCs in England and Wales told The Mail on Sunday they will appoint deputies, on salaries totalling at least £468,000.
PCCs, who set budgets and priorities, have just one pot of money to spend on their own offices and the force they govern, totalling almost £8 billion a year nationwide. The more they spend on their staff, the less they will have for frontline police.
All 41 PCCs will meet for the first time tomorrow when they travel to the Home Office to see Theresa May, the Home Secretary, and Damian Green, the Policing Minister.
Many will call for changes to their budgets, as forces have been told to make savings of £2.4 billion by 2015.
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