Cambridgeshire’s Police and Crime Panel has formally met ten times since it came into being. The panel’s first meeting was in December 2012 so it has been meeting for less than two years.
There are thirteen places on the panel and twenty-seven people have filled those seats over the panel’s relatively short period in existence.
At three of the ten meetings of the panel an astonishing five of the thirteen panel members were absent and at a further three meetings four were absent (though on occasion some sent alternate councillors in their place).
I think this is a large amount of turnover, and coupled with the level of absence by panel members it has resulted in a lack of continuity which has impacted the effectiveness of the panel.
Independent member Raja Ali, who was eventually removed from the panel after being absent from it for around fifteen months and not responding to the panel’s attempts to contact him, has the worst attendance record, attending just three of the nine meetings he was able to attend.
Cllr Martin Curtis attended five of eight meetings while he was a panel member, Cllrs James Palmer and Tom Hunt have both managed three of five.
Peterborough City Councillor Julia Davidson became a member of the panel in advance of its July 2014 meeting but didn’t turn up to it and is yet to attend a meeting.
Attendance figures don’t capture members sitting in silence throughout meetings; or being absent from the room during large chunks of the meeting (as Cambridge’s representative did in March 2014).
The Police and Crime Panel is the only local body with the power to require the Police and Crime Commissioner to answer its questions; it has a key role in scrutinising the work of the commissioner.
I think an effective panel could help inform the public of Cambridgeshire about what the commissioner is doing, and help all of us assess his performance. The panel also has the opportunity to assist the commissioner by making recommendations where they think he could do things better.
Panels elsewhere have invited their Chief Constables to attend panel meetings. I don’t think Cambridgeshire’s Chief Constable has appeared at a public meeting since Police and Crime Commissioners came in in November 2012.
I have made a spreadsheet containing my collation of the absence statistics and my analysis available.
I have personally been present at at least seven of the ten meetings of the panel; I’ve also been present outside a number of private meetings of the panel, including a meeting of the “shadow” panel where panel members met the Police and Crime Commissioner for the first time; a key event which I think should have taken place in public.
2 responses to “High Level of Turnover and Absence on Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Panel”
Richard, Thank you for this I asked the council to provide this summary information some time back, and at the same time asked for information on the contributions made by each member. Unfortunately without your efforts there would be no consolidated record of who attended this committee, and from your recordings what their contribution was. I suspect from the lack of contributions from most members, the absence of any substantive contributions from those who have spoken, and the clear lack of any prepration by any attending member the committee is seen as relatively powerless, of little value, and a necessary administartive burden to tick off that legislation is being complied with.
Why is this case? Well maybe you should look at the politics of the thing. The secret cabal that setup the committee was led by the committees chairman who in effect drew up unchallenged the membership of the committee. Given the under representation of Peterborough and Cambridge and the dominance of the rural areas the committee will always effectively be dominated by the Conservative members. Once Bright was elected despite his negligible support in Cambridge and Peterborough, and not withstanding the poor turnout what do you expect the Conservative members to do but just tick the necessary admin boxes for Sir Graham. There has been no attempt by the other parties to use the panel meetings to challenge Sir Graham on his budget or his decision making. And there have been clear areas worthy of challenge. I guess they have voted with their feet and decided it’s pointless to do so. It is certainly the case that there has been little evidence of any deep/slight knowledge of Sir Graham’s activities nor the role of the PCC. Sir Graham when given the floor has been allowed to talk freely without ever being challenged, as you have pointed on numerous occassion the panel are only offered a small selection of the decisions being made for scrutiny, and no challenge has been made of this. My own personal bête noir is that despite very publicly supporting the Cheif Constable for the use of undercover cops he has never been questioned on this, and he gets away with it because he determines and not the panel what are “operational matters”. Oh and, of course, despite clearly misleading the panel and the electorate on cost savings of his office no-one from the panel challenged him or his finance officer – who despite being off pay role he took an inordinately lengthy time to replace using the police services own finance officer to have the dual role of setting the PCC’s and the constabulary budget against the express guidance of the HMIC and the Home Office.
We have on this committee been poorly served by our politicians, and I see no reason why this will change. And, of course, the non-politicians who have been on the committee have either failed to turn up, contributed little, or potentially used the post as a networking opportunity.
Two new members of the panel attended their first meeting in January 2015
http://democracy.peterborough.gov.uk/documents/s23138/3.%20150128%20-%20Draft%20MinutesFinal.pdf