West Midlands Police Authority

Nice work….if you can get it

Assistant West Mids police commissioners to be paid £22,500 for two and a half day week

By:
Published January 14, 2013, in Opinion


cashThe police authority is dead; long live the police authority.

That, at least, is one way of interpreting the decision by West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Bob Jones to establish a strategic policing and crime board complete with well-paid assistant commissioners and non-executive members.

Two months into his £100,000-a-year role, Commissioner Jones has decided he needs additional help to “ensure effective engagement and strategic direction” and to hold the police force to account – all tasks which, actually, sit firmly in Mr Jones’s own job description.

There are two clear dangers here for Mr Jones, who still continues to juggle his other role as a Labour city councillor in Wolverhampton with that of police commissioner. The first is that the new board will be regarded by his political opponents as a costly layer of unnecessary bureaucracy; the second is that the appointment of board members may ignite a whole new ‘cronyism’ row and

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Lloyd House could be sold ‘if the price is right’

Labour PCC candidate Bob Jones would consider 'sensible' offers for West Mids police HQ

By:
Published November 12, 2012, in Police Commissioners


Labour police commissioner candidate Bob Jones would consider selling the West Midlands force’s Lloyd House headquarters in central Birmingham if “the right financial offer came along”.

Mr Jones promised to listen to any sensible proposals for the 13-storey building if he wins the election on November 15 to become the region’s first Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC).

One possibility would be to combine the sale of Lloyd House with the disposal of the soon to be redundant historic police cells block at nearby Steelhouse Lane, Mr Jones added.

However, he cautioned against rushing into a decision and said he thought it doubtful that

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New cash crisis for West Midlands Police

Force facing £26 million bill on top of £112 million cuts

By:
Published October 22, 2012, in Police Commissioners


The West Midlands’ first Police and Crime Commissioner could face an immediate £26 million black hole in the force budget, making yet more spending cuts highly likely.

Although the police authority has already identified £112 million in austerity savings by 2015, with the loss of 1,000 front-line officers, the body’s chairman has warned of more crippling financial pressure from a range of Government measures.

Bishop Derek Webley, who is an Independent candidate for Police Commissioner, has written to all West Midlands MPs asking for their support in lobbying Policing Minister Nick Herbert.

The financial issues identified by Mr Webley are:

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With a little help from a few of my friends

West Midlands PCC to get lengthy advice note from police authority members

By:
Published October 7, 2012, in Police Commissioners


Bob Jones

In a little over a month’s time, barring an unprecedented reversal in political sentiment, or a slump in voter turnout to minuscule levels, Bob Jones will become the West Midlands’ first Police and Crime Commissioner.

And one of the first things he will find in his in-tray is a lengthy report setting out why he should carry on with the “ambitious reform plans” set out by the very police authority of which he has been a Labour member for more than two decades.

This document should be familiar to Coun Jones, for he contributed to it along with other colleagues including Bishop Derek Webley, the authority’s Independent chairman, who is also contesting the PCC elections on November 15.

If the Government thought that PCCs would replace police authorities with a new era of forceful, individuals from outside of the party political establishment brimming with new ideas, then Ministers better be prepared for disappointment.

It’s not just in the West Midlands that the old guard is preparing to move into the new PCC roles – existing police authority members across the country have their eyes on

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So why are the West Midlands Police’s detection rates so poor?

Chris Game on the depressing statistics that hopeful PCCs really should grasp

By:
Published October 2, 2012, in Police Commissioners


“What about the crucial matter of detection rates?” asked Paul Dale in his more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger piece on last week’s Police and Crime Commissioner hustings.

Paul had been underwhelmed – by the would-be commissioners’ dearth of passion and conviction, and by their generally platitudinous responses to questions. He was particularly irked, though, by their shared reluctance to criticise the performance of the West Midlands Police, given the range of serious concerns for which they themselves would become answerable, were they to be elected in November.

Hence the semi-rhetorical question about detection rates – semi-rhetorical, because Paul went on to quote some of these rates, from the Police Authority’s .

It was, he suggested, a “paltry” picture:  fewer than 9% of vehicle crimes solved, 11% of domestic burglaries, 21% of robberies, 32% of serious sexual offences – exacerbated by

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