PCC election result

The results of the Police and Crime Commissioner elections in the Northumbria area are as follows:

1. Vera Baird, Labour, 100,170 votes, 56%

2. Phil Butler, Conservatives, 45,845 votes; 25.6%

3. Alistair Baxter, UKIP, 18,876 votes, 10.6%

4. Peter Andras, Liberal Democrats, 13,916 votes, 7.8%

The turnout in the Northumbria area was 16.4%. The number of spoiled ballot papers was 3,887 representing 2.12% of all used ballot papers.

I would like to thank everybody who voted for the Liberal Democrats in the Northumbria PCC elections.

Being the right candidate for the job

I am a local councillor in Newcastle, representing the North Jesmond ward. As a local councillor I regularly deal with police related matters, e.g. anti-social behaviour, night time noise.

I am member of committees that monitor the efficiency (value-for-money) of two large organisations (Newcastle City Council  and Newcastle University), both with a budget larger than the budget of the Northumbria Police.

I am an academic (Reader) at Newcastle University, in the School of Computing Science, and member of the University Council, which is the governing body of the University. I have been also member of the University Senate, which is the highest academic body of the University.

I have been involved in the creation of three university spin-off companies, one of which entered the London Stock Exchange in 2007.

One of my research interests is the analysis of large-scale organisations and I have been involved in advising on organisational change in large organisations. In particular I am interested in implementing and maintaining organisational transparency and building, maintaining and managing trust within organisations.

In the past I have been involved as a leader in non-profit and community organisations. One of the organisations (Civitas Foundation) that I created as chief executive in 1992 is a major player in the Romanian world of non-profit and community organisations that are active in the area of supporting community initiatives and local and regional development. Another organisation (Saltwell Bensham Resident's Association), of which I was the first vice-chairman, successfully fought the Gateshead Council to stop the demolition of many Victorian houses that were considered to contribute critically to the character and spirit of the local community.

I believe that my background in managing, monitoring, and evaluating organisations combined with my experience in the world of community and voluntary organisations and as a local councillor is the most appropriate for the PCC role, and will allow me to act as an unbiased civilian aimed to make sure that the democratic scrutiny of the police works and that the police is responsive to local needs and community priorities.

Please read the posts below and also earlier posts to see my views on some frequently asked questions that I received from the public and also on other issues relevant for the Police and Crime Commissioner position.

Privatisation

I do not intend to support the privatisation of police services, but it will not be my role as PCC to decide on operational matters of the police. This means that I will not be involved in operational decisions about how to run services (including the inclusion of external organisations and contractors in this). Although I will influence the policy and priority level decisions that may have operational consequences in the sense of including external partners. For example, the setting of the budget and the aiming for improving the value-for-money aspect of police services may have such consequences.

I had a meeting recently with the Chief Constable of Northumbria Police. My understanding is that there are no current plans for buying in complete services from for-profit contractors. 

The police collaborates with a large number of voluntary and community sector organisations which are commissioned to contribute services that integrate with the service provided by the police, for example in the area of victim support or drug intervention. In general I support such collaborative arrangements with community and voluntary organisations, and I think that these should be extended in the future. 

There are also possibly back-office services (for example the management of commissioning) that may be run more efficiently if these are shared across police authorities or shared with other large public organisations (for example local authorities). I am not against such arrangements, but clearly these should be evaluated carefully, considering all aspects and impacts of them. 

There are possibly aspects of services that can be run more efficiently through the involvement of private companies (for example the information technology infrastructure of the police), but I think that this does not apply to core police services through which members of the police face directly and personally members of the public (including people taken to police stations).

I have no personal connection to any company that might be interested in police contracts.

Restorative justice

I have visited recently the Northumbria Probation Trust. They have a pilot project on implementing restorative justice and community justice approaches. Their preliminary analysis shows a considerable positive impact of these approaches. For example, it indicates that the rate of re-offending is reduced by over 10% compared to other approaches.

I intend to increase the collaboration with community and voluntary organisations involved in restorative justice and community justice approaches, to show that there is an alternative to issuing a large number of ASBOs, just to look ‘tough on crime’.

I think that getting involved people committing low level crime into their communities and making them understand the unpleasant consequences of their behaviour can reduce the rate of re-offending and can improve the social integration of these people. It can also help to resolve their underlying problems that are likely to be the source of their criminal behaviour.

As a PCC I will not have direct influence on operational policing. However, I will focus on facilitating information sharing and collaboration between the police and partner organisations, including voluntary and community organisations, through the setting of priorities and influencing startegy and policies. Delivering effective restorative justice and community-based justice depends very much on good collaboration and information sharing between the police and the partner organisations (Probation Trust, health care trusts, voluntary organisations, etc.). I hope that if I am elected as PCC I can have a positive impact on these and lead to a wider scale of use of restorative justice and community-based justice.

Wildlife crime

If I am elected to be the Police and Crime Commissioner, my intention is to do my best to gather the views of local communities, including minority communities, and channel these towards to police such that the setting of police priorities and policies are aligned with preferences of local communities, respecting also differences between different parts of the Northumbria Police area. I do not intend to use my personal or party political preferences to set particular policing priorities or policies beyond my general commitment to democratic transparency and responsiveness to community needs. 

My personal view on wildlife crime is that this is an important issue, especially in Northumberland, but also in many other parts of the Northumbria Police area. I am against unnecessary cruel behaviour against animals (e.g. fox hunting, badger baiting) and I support the current legislation on this matter. (A note: I used the word 'unnecessary' above to indicate that there are some necessary behaviours related to animals that may be considered cruel by some, although are not defined as cruelty against animals according to the law, for example killing of farm animals, or biomedical research on animals.)

Judging from the number of emails that I received related to this issue, there is considerable community support for effective enforcing of the relevant legislation about wildlife crime. As I stated above I do not intend to use my personal political views to set policing priorities, but I rather prefer to set these priorities such that they meet the preferences of local communities, including minority communities. These priorities will drive the setting of the budget.

Baird comments reveal fundamental distrust of public she’d serve

I have said consistently that I believe the primary duty of an elected PCC will be to improve communications between the police and the public, and that if elected that will be my priority.

So you can imagine my concern when I saw the reply Labour candidate Vera Baird sent to a member of the public who asked her a simple question about whether those who burn poppies should be arrested.

Vera Baird’s reply – “Who’s asking?” – is revealing in a number of ways. It displays a suspicion of the public she intends to serve. It displays an unwillingness to divulge information to the people whose Council Tax she intends to hike up. Most seriously, it demonstrates that for all of her talk about openness and improved communication, Vera Baird remains at heart a New Labour political hack, with a fundamental distrust of the people whose votes she is asking for. If this is how Labour’s candidate treats the public, it’s no wonder that so many people have complained about lack of information on their PCC candidates.

Let’s not forget, also, that Vera Baird recently called on people not to exercise their full voting rights in the PCC ballot and to use only their first preference vote. In a position that is supposed to bring democracy to the police she is anti-democracy, and in a position that is supposed to improve communications between the police and the public she refuses to communicate. Is this really the sort of person people in Northumbria want as their first elected PCC?