Cllr Sue James calls for 2016 Police and Crime Commissioner Elections to be Cancelled
Cllr Sue James calls for 2016 Police and Crime Commissioner Elections to be cancelled. The people of Cornwall can be forgiven for not noticing that there was a by-election in the West Midlands last week to elect a new Police and Crime Commissioner. In fact, not many of the people eligible to vote, in the West Midlands, noticed or could be bothered with it!
Although it cost over £3.7m to hold the by-election only 10.4% of the adults eligible to vote felt is was worth the effort. That is about £20 per vote cast. The Government launched this new elected role in 2012 saying it was “the most significant democratic reform of policing in our lifetime” but ordinary people have shown no interest in having more elected roles and the reality is that this experiment is probably as popular as the pole tax. The elections, to bring in these posts, in 2012 cost tax payers an estimated £75,000,000, according to the Electoral Reform Society and due to the low turn out nationally, that amounted to £14 per vote cast.
Cllr Sue James was so incensed by the cost of the by-election and the cost of the PCC Offices throughout the Country that she has set up a petition on the Government website calling for the elections in 2016 to be cancelled and the management of the police transferred to the National Offender Management Service, already responsible for the Probation Service and Prisons. If you agree then follow the link to sign the petition and tell as many of your friends as you can about it.
Petition of Cllr Sue James “Cancel Police and Crime Commissioner Elections in 2016” can be signed at