The decision of the Police and Crime Commissioner to appoint the recent Labour candidate for Daventry as her deputy seems somewhat inept. I have no criticism of the candidate concerned, I know nothing about her but the timing does not look good. Lose an election on Thursday be appointed to a £50k the next day- by a fellow Party member. A job by the way the previous inept Tory Commissioner didn't seem to need (and he was prone to appoint mates) Danielle was very clear that she was going to clean the Police stable .This is not a very good look. By the way even if the Tory dominated 'panel' questions the appointment-they an do nothing about it. Once more the absurdity of the Police and Crime and Fire etc Commissioner reveals the dangers of giving so much power to one person.£50k of public money could certainly put another Police officer on the beat-just a thought.
I am currently watching the panel meeting, which is not an easy job due to the poor technical aspects of the presentation and the fact that most of the participants are quite incoherent speakers.
I agree with you specifically with regard to the appointment of the deputy commissioner. The failure to produce the candidate's CV (which, in the meeting, has graduated into an absolute refusal to produce it), contributes significantly to the poor look created by the appointment. I think it is a demonstration of careless disregard for the public interest that somebody should be appointed to a paid public role of this type with that person's background being treated, effectively, as something that can legitimately be concealed from the people paying the salary.
More broadly about the role in general of the commissioner, I also agree with you. To my mind, the commissioner is distinct from other elected appointments (such as councillors), in that he/she is an elected official, rather than an elected representative. The appointment therefore calls for different skills from those of a representative, and, in particular, a more detached approach to party political allegiances. Unfortunately, the parties themselves, who, in general, nominate and then campaign for the candidates, have taken a view that the role is primarily political and have, in general, offered up to the public people who are "party hacks" first priority and potentially competent commissioners second priority. And, of course, we, the voting public, have fallen in with that view and voted (largely) on party lines. Thus we end up with what we have got - i.e. a succession of not very good commissioners.
Barometer-what was the outcome of the meeting? Why was the candidates CV not presented? How on earth could any meaningful discussion take place? It sounds worse than I could have imagined.
I should have answered your first question, of course. The reason for non-presentation of the CV is that the commissioner argues that the appointment of the deputy commissioner is political rather than administrative, and therefore out of the purview of the panel. The monitoring officer seemed to agree with her, but pointed out that the absence of a CV is atypical, compared to other commissioners and their recruitment of deputy commissioners in other areas.
It is, I think, in effect, an early effort to take control of the relationship between her and the panel. She can, after all, claim that, if the panel were to obstruct the appointment, then it would be holding her to different standards than they did with her predecessor. And the panel haven't helped themselves in that respect by re-electing David Smith as the chairman - Smith having been the prime mover for the lax operation of the panel during the later (and worst) part of the Mold era.
So, one imagines that Ms Stone considers herself to have acted rather cleverly, from a political perspective. On the other hand, one could reasonably say that the cost of all this lies with the council tax payers, that a not specially able person has been appointed to a fairly well paid job at your expense and mine, for the sake of scoring a political point, and that the timing about not exposing a candidate's CV to public scrutiny, considering the Adderley affair, could hardly be worse. You are right - it isn't a good look. But it is a long time until the next PFCC election. Will we remember?
This seems like a curious anomaly. If the post is political then why wasn't it an elected post ?If it is an appointment to a public office with a salary attached is there an employment contract that indicates conditions of employment-working hours, responsibilities, access to confidential information and so on ? If it is purely a political appointment would she for instance have access to the details of the dismissal of the Chief Constable (would he have the right to object ? ) and would she be part of the selection and appointment process of the next CC) This appointment raises all sorts of questions that don't appear to have a public response. And what is the bloody point of the panel ? It would appear to have no 'watchdog' function so it is really a dead watchdog.
The meeting is still going on, albeit that it has now gone into "secret session". There have been a number of grumblings about the absence of the CV. The Q+A with the candidate was in public, but it consisted of mostly quite mild questions and platitudinous answers. The chairman seemed keen to direct questioning away from the panel members simply asking the candidate what her CV consists of. I have to say, I didn't get the strong impression of a particularly able or experienced person, nor that the role is particularly well-defined.
The secret session is for the panel to discuss the appointment but the impression given (reading between the lines of what the chairman said) is that the appointment will be approved. This would be, in my observation, that the panel is not going to dare to veto the appointment and it would revert to being approved by default in 21 days if the decision was delayed.
Interestingly, the point mas made that though the job will be called "deputy commissioner", that doesn't seem to imply that she would be a true authorised deputy (e.g. taking over if the elected commissioner was ill). Under those circumstances, the decision of who would deputise for the commissioner reverts back to the panel.
I just read the Northamptonshire Telegraph reporting on Friday 12th July confirmation hearing for a Deputy (the failed MP) for the new Commissioner Danielle Stone. For the past 12 years there has been no necessity for a Deputy.
Since taking office eight weeks ago Stone has made numerous exaggerated claims about how difficult the job has been up until the general election she was fully supported by Mike Reader. Now there is complete silence from him. If a Deputy is now required for her to do her job than, it goes without saying, that she should resign as she appears weak and out of her depth. Also when compared likes for likes the staff in her office is four to five time bigger. That is not VALUE FOR MONEY in my opinion.
John Dickie is spot on, this is a very poor start for the commissioner. Why would you appoint someone to a job they obviously didn’t want a week before. If she had been successful in getting elected a few days earlier does anyone think that she would have turned down entering the commons, to work for the PFCC?
The only highlight was the sight of councillor Binley attempting to give a lecture on ethics, with his record this was truly bizarre.
The decision of the Police and Crime Commissioner to appoint the recent Labour candidate for Daventry as her deputy seems somewhat inept. I have no criticism of the candidate concerned, I know nothing about her but the timing does not look good. Lose an election on Thursday be appointed to a £50k the next day- by a fellow Party member. A job by the way the previous inept Tory Commissioner didn't seem to need (and he was prone to appoint mates) Danielle was very clear that she was going to clean the Police stable .This is not a very good look. By the way even if the Tory dominated 'panel' questions the appointment-they an do nothing about it. Once more the absurdity of the Police and Crime and Fire etc Commissioner reveals the dangers of giving so much power to one person.£50k of public money could certainly put another Police officer on the beat-just a thought.
I am currently watching the panel meeting, which is not an easy job due to the poor technical aspects of the presentation and the fact that most of the participants are quite incoherent speakers.
I agree with you specifically with regard to the appointment of the deputy commissioner. The failure to produce the candidate's CV (which, in the meeting, has graduated into an absolute refusal to produce it), contributes significantly to the poor look created by the appointment. I think it is a demonstration of careless disregard for the public interest that somebody should be appointed to a paid public role of this type with that person's background being treated, effectively, as something that can legitimately be concealed from the people paying the salary.
More broadly about the role in general of the commissioner, I also agree with you. To my mind, the commissioner is distinct from other elected appointments (such as councillors), in that he/she is an elected official, rather than an elected representative. The appointment therefore calls for different skills from those of a representative, and, in particular, a more detached approach to party political allegiances. Unfortunately, the parties themselves, who, in general, nominate and then campaign for the candidates, have taken a view that the role is primarily political and have, in general, offered up to the public people who are "party hacks" first priority and potentially competent commissioners second priority. And, of course, we, the voting public, have fallen in with that view and voted (largely) on party lines. Thus we end up with what we have got - i.e. a succession of not very good commissioners.
Barometer-what was the outcome of the meeting? Why was the candidates CV not presented? How on earth could any meaningful discussion take place? It sounds worse than I could have imagined.
I should have answered your first question, of course. The reason for non-presentation of the CV is that the commissioner argues that the appointment of the deputy commissioner is political rather than administrative, and therefore out of the purview of the panel. The monitoring officer seemed to agree with her, but pointed out that the absence of a CV is atypical, compared to other commissioners and their recruitment of deputy commissioners in other areas.
It is, I think, in effect, an early effort to take control of the relationship between her and the panel. She can, after all, claim that, if the panel were to obstruct the appointment, then it would be holding her to different standards than they did with her predecessor. And the panel haven't helped themselves in that respect by re-electing David Smith as the chairman - Smith having been the prime mover for the lax operation of the panel during the later (and worst) part of the Mold era.
So, one imagines that Ms Stone considers herself to have acted rather cleverly, from a political perspective. On the other hand, one could reasonably say that the cost of all this lies with the council tax payers, that a not specially able person has been appointed to a fairly well paid job at your expense and mine, for the sake of scoring a political point, and that the timing about not exposing a candidate's CV to public scrutiny, considering the Adderley affair, could hardly be worse. You are right - it isn't a good look. But it is a long time until the next PFCC election. Will we remember?
This seems like a curious anomaly. If the post is political then why wasn't it an elected post ?If it is an appointment to a public office with a salary attached is there an employment contract that indicates conditions of employment-working hours, responsibilities, access to confidential information and so on ? If it is purely a political appointment would she for instance have access to the details of the dismissal of the Chief Constable (would he have the right to object ? ) and would she be part of the selection and appointment process of the next CC) This appointment raises all sorts of questions that don't appear to have a public response. And what is the bloody point of the panel ? It would appear to have no 'watchdog' function so it is really a dead watchdog.
The meeting is still going on, albeit that it has now gone into "secret session". There have been a number of grumblings about the absence of the CV. The Q+A with the candidate was in public, but it consisted of mostly quite mild questions and platitudinous answers. The chairman seemed keen to direct questioning away from the panel members simply asking the candidate what her CV consists of. I have to say, I didn't get the strong impression of a particularly able or experienced person, nor that the role is particularly well-defined.
The secret session is for the panel to discuss the appointment but the impression given (reading between the lines of what the chairman said) is that the appointment will be approved. This would be, in my observation, that the panel is not going to dare to veto the appointment and it would revert to being approved by default in 21 days if the decision was delayed.
Interestingly, the point mas made that though the job will be called "deputy commissioner", that doesn't seem to imply that she would be a true authorised deputy (e.g. taking over if the elected commissioner was ill). Under those circumstances, the decision of who would deputise for the commissioner reverts back to the panel.
I just read the Northamptonshire Telegraph reporting on Friday 12th July confirmation hearing for a Deputy (the failed MP) for the new Commissioner Danielle Stone. For the past 12 years there has been no necessity for a Deputy.
Since taking office eight weeks ago Stone has made numerous exaggerated claims about how difficult the job has been up until the general election she was fully supported by Mike Reader. Now there is complete silence from him. If a Deputy is now required for her to do her job than, it goes without saying, that she should resign as she appears weak and out of her depth. Also when compared likes for likes the staff in her office is four to five time bigger. That is not VALUE FOR MONEY in my opinion.
I concur with John Dickie comments. Danielle Stone seems to think that building her Office empire has no limits or consequences.
Has she carried out any of her election promises so far? No she has not. It is unlikely that she will be able to deliver anything.
Maybe there will be pressure on North Northamptonshire Council to introduce DBS checks now the West have done it.
John Dickie is spot on, this is a very poor start for the commissioner. Why would you appoint someone to a job they obviously didn’t want a week before. If she had been successful in getting elected a few days earlier does anyone think that she would have turned down entering the commons, to work for the PFCC?
The only highlight was the sight of councillor Binley attempting to give a lecture on ethics, with his record this was truly bizarre.